


Disconnect

by LadyYateXel, tinsnip



Series: Rewiring [1]
Category: Deep Dish Nine - Fandom, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deep Dish Nine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyYateXel/pseuds/LadyYateXel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/pseuds/tinsnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a conversation that Lady Yate-Xel and Tinsnip had re: a Deep Dish Nine version of "The Wire," namely: what if Elim Garak's wire was a neat little drug addiction?</p>
<p>Set in the alternate universe of Deep Dish Nine.</p>
<p>Tinsnip wrote it, Lady Yate-Xel drew it and provided oodles and oodles of background detail and world-building for Tinsnip to make sand castles out of. (We really should have a works cited page.)</p>
<p>This work uses Lady Yate-Xel's Julian and Elim and is not "canon," as it were; it's just an idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. day zero

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by ["The Wire"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/26341) by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. 



> Deep Dish Nine is a DS9 AU. You can read all kinds of fun DD9 stuff [here](http://deep-dish-nine.tumblr.com/), but the important points are as follows:  
> 1\. All non-Human species are different races of Humanity.  
> 2\. All home worlds are now home provinces/countries/what have you.  
> 3\. This is set approximately now.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This fic was heavily influenced by Florence and the Machine's ["No Light, No Light"](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/no-light-no-light/id547334698?i=547334706). Lady Yate-Xel tipped Tinsnip off about it, and this happened.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Kardasi grammar and pronunciation sourced from [here](http://galileoace.com/Cardassian/language.htm). Translations as hovertext.
> 
> Kardasi writing system and letter forms sourced from [here](http://ut.lcars47.com/), and everything here is an absolutely fascinating read, by the way. 
> 
> * * *
> 
> Harshly and wonderfully beta'd by [Vyc](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vyc/pseuds/Vyc) and [bmouse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse). Thank you both; this is so much better thanks to your suffering!

He rattled the pills in their vial.

Five left.

That would normally be two days. Three, if he stretched it.

It could also be five days without sleep.

It could perhaps even be ten days, although they would be ten very long days indeed. Quite frankly, if he was at the point that he was considering ten days, perhaps he should accept reality:  this was it.

He’d been trying to reach his supplier for a month, a _month_ now, and at first he’d been unconcerned when his emails received no response. This wouldn’t be the first time that there had been a delay in the supply. Elim Garak was a resourceful man and had always set aside enough to keep him going.

After a week of unanswered emails, he’d started to get slightly concerned. He’d tried the backup address; the email had bounced. He’d tried the address he wasn’t supposed to have; there’d been no answer at all, not even the standard “away on vacation, expect my reply in a few days,” just nothing. Public search engines had, of course, come up dry, but so had some databases that were much less visible to the public eye, and even a few discreet inquiries on various unadvertised message boards had yielded no fruit.

After two weeks, he’d accepted that there would be no reply to his request, and had started looking into alternative sources. Surely, in this day and age, a man with a need could find a way to fill that need without causing too much of a fuss…

But no pharmacy here had known what he’d needed. His politely anonymous phone calls had been met with equally polite confused responses. And he’d not wanted to get into the gory details of exactly what he was looking for, and certainly not why he needed it.

No online pharmacy seemed to stock it – at least, not one he’d trust to sell him anything that he was to then ingest.

And this was all rather beside the point, because obtaining a legitimate prescription would be… difficult.

That left illegitimate avenues, and the idea of trying to hunt such things down in an unfamiliar city, where he had no contacts, where no one was his friend and anyone might be his enemy… that didn’t appeal.

He’d even considered Quark, who often boasted that he could get anything for anyone, whose business operations clearly tapdanced back and forth over the line of legality, but that would be so _obvious_. The idea was moot, anyway: Quark wasn’t someone he could trust to keep his mouth shut, and Garak was sadly not in a position to make him do so.

So here he was, four weeks in, and down to five tablets, and this was how it was going to be. He’d known it was coming.

A smart man would stop taking them now, and would ready himself for the oncoming storm.

A frightened man would hide them away, immediately, so that he could rely on having them when he really needed them.

A practical man wouldn’t overanalyze the situation, and would simply accept that his life was about to go to hell.

Garak placed the vial back into its spot behind the sewing machine feet and slid the little drawer shut.


	2. day one

Julian Bashir hummed to himself as he wiped down the counter. _I am having a remarkably nice day._

He’d woken up feeling rested, which probably had to do with him actually getting to bed on time for once: thank God for life without call, he wasn’t scheduled for call for another three days, hallelujah.

He’d eaten a big bowl of sugary cereal, munching cross-legged on his bed, still pajama-clad, flipping through one of the Cardassian graphic novels he’d found at the comic shop. They were a very fun little escape – lots of declamatory shouting in emphatic panels, lots of close-ups of hands and eyes, and a great deal of shooting and running and sneaking around: thoroughly enjoyable, and becoming a bit of a guilty pleasure. Well, perhaps not _so_ guilty; man could not live by revision alone, right?

He’d had enough time to take a long, luxurious shower, water as hot as it would go, and he’d been able to stretch the last little shred of Elim’s sweetly-scented soap to one more good lather, _ahhh…_

Pleasantly fragranced, he’d then curled up with his pharmacology review notes and gotten some really good revision done, it was all starting to come _together_ , he’d make the residents _smile,_ and when ten-forty-five had rolled around and it had been time to head off to work, he’d left with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.

He was down to one shift a week at Deep Dish 9 these days, and honestly, despite the fact that he spent most days running from can to can’t, from his apartment to the hospital to the library to lectures to home, he didn’t begrudge that shift. He enjoyed it. The money helped; certainly his little five-hundred-per-month clerkship stipend didn’t pay rent, let alone groceries, and so any extra cash was desperately required so that he didn’t slide any further into debt than he had to. And, well… as odd as it felt to admit it, he’d grown rather fond of the place.

What had started as yet another lousy part-time job had become… rather important to him, actually. The idea of giving it up didn’t appeal.

And so he held on tight to that once-a-week Saturday shift, and it was days like today that really made it worth it: Kira had actually smiled when she’d seen him, and Ben had told him a joke, and Worf had been as cheerful as Worf ever got, and work had been surprisingly fun. Saturday’s little lunch rush of easy-going couples and busy shoppers had slipped by smoothly, and now only two tables were still occupied, and Julian was tidying up, his mind elsewhere, _soon, soon!_

 _Hey_ , and there he was, dark head and tailored coat moving smoothly past the shop window, and the door chimed as he came inside. His eyes flickered over the pizzeria, taking in the aftermath of the lunch crowd, finding Julian, and he smiled. _Ah—_

Julian slid around the counter and met him halfway.

“Hello, my dear.” Elim’s voice was warm.

“Hello, Garak.” Julian’s smile felt impossibly wide; it probably looked silly, and he didn’t care. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise.” Elim nodded at him, and Julian reached for his hand, drew it to his neck; Elim’s cool hand closed on his own and did the same, and Julian grinned at how the older man’s smile tilted just a little. _I am never going to get tired of that._

He shouted back to the kitchen, “I’m going on break now!”

Kira’s head popped up, briefly visible through the order window. “Half an hour.” She vanished again.

 _Same as it’s been for the last three years, yes, I know…_ “All right.” He turned to Elim, rolling his eyes, and Elim’s mouth twitched.

“Shall we?” Julian gestured to an empty table. Elim sat himself down neatly, tucking his coat under himself, no doubt to avoid wrinkles. Julian just plunked himself down and formally removed his nametag, the little ritual that meant he was On Break.

He raised his brows at Elim, still in his coat. “Aren’t you warm? Can’t I hang that up for you?”

Elim looked down at his coat, as if he was half surprised to be wearing it. “Ah. In fact, I thought perhaps I wouldn’t stay for long today.”

 _Oh._ That was disappointing. These days, between his frantic revision and random nights of call, there wasn’t much time for one-on-one conversation, let alone anything remotely less cerebral; the closest they came to “quality time” was sitting together on the couch, Elim sewing or reading while he studied or napped. He liked the once-a-week lunch, silly as it seemed some days, because it gave them face-to-face time that otherwise sometimes got pushed aside… _and now we’re going to start skipping it? Damn!_

His disappointment must have shown on his face, for Elim pursed his lips.

“Forgive me, Julian, I know we haven’t had much time together of late. I simply have a great deal to do at the shop.”

“Can’t it wait?” Probably not fair, but he’d been looking forward to this…

Elim sighed and rubbed his face, pressing his fingers against his eyes.

Julian frowned, disappointment briefly forgotten. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Elim dropped his hand and met Julian’s eyes, and Julian wasn’t quite certain what to make of his expression. Just a bit challenging – _did I say something wrong…?_

Oh, well, tetchy Elim was nothing new; he shrugged it off. “Well, I’m glad you made time to come see me, even if it’s only for a little while.” He smiled at him, hoping for a little smile back, and was rewarded. But those eyes… red-rimmed and tired. _Well, poking at him won’t help; he’ll only dance around the topic until I’m tired of asking._ He’d have to wait and see what Elim chose to hand him.

And here it was: Elim looked away, his body language clearly changing the subject. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” and Julian looked around him, “lunch was mad. Fun, though.” He turned back to Elim, smiling. “Believe me, running lunch orders back and forth is a hell of a lot more fun than running to fetch records for the residents, some days.”

“I’d imagine.” Elim’s expression was contemplative.

“And your day – so you’ve been busy? Lots of customers? Did you get any progress made on that alteration…” And he trailed off, because Elim was rubbing his face again, yawning, and he was clearly elsewhere.

He bit the inside of his cheek and didn’t say anything.

It took a moment for Elim to realize that he wasn’t talking; when it clicked, he looked up, half-startled, half-apologetic. “I am sorry, my dear. Please forgive me.”

“That’s all right…” _But I wish you’d explain._   “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Elim frowned, sighed, glanced from side to side. “I admit I am feeling somewhat fatigued today.” His tone was low; he leaned in conspiratorially. “To be honest, I was up quite late last night working on that remarkably tiresome wedding commission. That woman truly thinks fuchsia with teal is an appropriate choice for her maid of honour. I am half-blinded.” He rubbed his eyes again; his smile was wry.

Julian found himself smiling back. _As always. Smug bastard._ “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to give you moral support.”

Elim waved that away. “I’m sure your duties at the hospital were more important than my thankless toil at my sewing machine, although I confess that your text was read with a certain amount of regret.”

Ah, right; he’d been so exhausted after his shift he’d collapsed into bed, and his text had read something along the lines of **so tired not coming over sorry** – he barely remembered sending it.

He tilted his head, smiled sympathetically at Elim. “Well, at least now I can feed you, right? Fortify you with a good meal and a stimulating chat?”

He let his voice dip a bit low at that last, and it pulled a smile from Elim, excellent; less excellent was how it almost immediately became another frown. “I think… I may actually take my lunch to go, Julian, if that’s all right with you.”

“Um… Of course it’s all right, Garak. I’ll package it up…” He slid out of his chair, moved back to the kitchen, through the swinging door, and once out of view, paused to allow himself one moment of pure screwed-up facial frustration. Not even five minutes together – _damn!_

“Everything all right, Julian?” Ben was mixing up a new batch of dough; he looked up at Julian, his face liberally floured, and his brows rose.

 _Whoops._ He hadn’t particularly wanted anyone to see the face he’d made just then. “Oh, yes, sorry. I’m going to get Garak’s lunch to go.”

“Oh, yeah? He’s in a hurry today?”

“I think he’s… not feeling great, actually.” Julian shrugged, smiled.  

“Too bad. Well, wish him well from me.” Ben turned back to the dough, humming to himself, and Julian sighed and slid Garak’s prettily-prepared salad into a takeout container, along with its little plastic pot of dressing. He grabbed himself a quick bowl of spaghetti and ladled a little tomato sauce over the top; no point in anything fancy if lunch was going to be abbreviated.

Hands full, he bumped the kitchen door open and headed back towards the table. He saw Elim leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, looking for all the world as if he could drop off to sleep right there in his chair; as Julian came nearer, his eyes opened and he smiled, but he really didn’t look at all well. _All right, Elim. If you want to play ‘let’s pretend,’ I can play along._

“Here you go,” and he placed Elim’s lunch down in front of him, receiving a nod of thanks for his trouble. He folded himself back into the chair opposite and twirled up a mouthful of spaghetti, and Elim watched him, smiling.

“Pasta again?”

“Mmm. Easy carbs. Keeps me going.”

“Tomato sauce again, I see. Don’t you ever wonder what something more complicated might taste like?”

“No, because everything _you_ cook is far too complicated to begin with. Sometimes I like simple. Anyway, at least it’s a vegetable.”

“A fruit, technically.”

Julian rolled his eyes, mouth full, smiling. Food helped, as always; it was hard to be sour about much with carbohydrates in one’s stomach. _God knows I definitely don’t think very well with low blood sugar; must stop over-analyzing life when hungry, Julian._

Well, might as well keep things as normal as possible; he leaned in. “So, how are you coming along with The Princess Bride?”

Suddenly Elim’s face was remarkably non-committal. “It’s…” A blink, a sigh. “It’s very silly.”

Julian frowned in slight exasperation. “You haven’t read far enough into it yet, Garak.” He tapped his fork on his bowl. “It gets very dark. I promise.”

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“Hmm. You’ll see.” Another bite of pasta, tart and sweet in his mouth.

“Speaking of how books are progressing,” and Elim raised his brows inquisitively, “how are you finding The Never-Ending Sacrifice?”

 _Urgh._ “Um…” How to duck around this one? The book was a _brick_ ; he carried it everywhere in his messenger bag, and it was heavy as hell, and between hospital shifts and lectures and revision, he was finding it rather hard to make time for Ulan Corac to lecture at him about the True Cardassian Way. _I’m not even Cardassian, for God’s sake; can’t I just have a pass on this one?_

Elim saw his trapped expression and tutted at him, disappointed. “You should at least try it, Julian.”

“I _am_ trying it. It’s just… hard to find the time to read, that’s all.” He thought briefly of the graphic novel lying open on his bed, and felt a twinge of guilt. _Maybe I can find a manga version…_

Elim sighed, his body language almost frustrated, and he rubbed his eyes. “You don’t have to read it at all. I thought you would enjoy it. Perhaps it’s just a bit too cerebral for you.”

 _Hey!_ “What did that mean?” Tetchy was one thing. Nasty was quite another—

But Elim was already raising a hand, shaking his head. “Not what it sounded like; forgive me. I am… I am simply not myself today.” His apologetic smile was rather pale.

This… wasn’t much fun, and Elim had just dropped his face into his hand again.

“You know, it’s okay.”

Elim peered through his fingers, gaze a bit abstracted. “Hmm?”

“If you don’t feel like staying. It’s okay. You can go. You have a lot to do.”

Elim opened his mouth, closed it again, tilted his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He smiled, trying for reassuring. “Maybe I’ll come over later, all right?”

“Mmm.” Elim’s smile was almost hesitant. “Perhaps… you should text me first. I believe I may want to get to bed early tonight.”

Julian let his smile tilt. “Maybe I do too.”

That fetched him, at least for a moment; Elim eyed him sidelong, and Julian’s smile widened into a grin. “All right, all right, I’ll text you first. I promise.”

Elim nodded thanks, and smiled, and rose, and as he did Julian stood too, and caught Elim’s hand in his. Fine, today was abbreviated, fine, he was a bit put out about it, but he was by God not going to pass up a chance to press his palm to Elim’s, to interlock their fingers, to feel his pulse thrum. A bit bold, perhaps, but it felt so good… and yes, his audacity netted him a look of mild disapproval, but also a firmly reciprocal, equally bold squeeze. God, the man was so transparent. He couldn’t help but grin at him. _I know you, Elim; never think I don’t._

In a matter of minutes Elim had paid and left with his small container of takeout, his stride smooth, his back straight; Julian watched him go rather wistfully. He sat back down to his lunch, poked at it with a fork.

_I will not be sour about this._

There were still twenty minutes of break to enjoy, after all; no point wasting them, and the food _was_ good… And really, there was no sense in being depressed about this flop of a lunch all day. It had been a good shift thus far, and he’d be off at five – and then he could spend some time with Elim, some _real_ time, and it would be fun. He’d make sure it was. And for now, he’d fuel himself on tomato sauce and optimism. _So that’s settled, then: no moping._

But that night, when he left work, waving behind him, when he tapped **hi garak done work can i see u?** into his phone, all he got back was **Sorry. Not tonight.**


	3. day two

The first day had been bearable. The lights of his apartment and his shop had been a bit too bright. He’d felt slightly nauseated and not at all hungry; the takeout container of salad had gone straight into the trash as soon as he’d left Deep Dish 9. He’d had a mild headache, and he’d been tired, and he’d yawned, but overall it had been manageable, and he’d thought, _I can do this._

The second day was _nothing_ like the first.

He woke up in a puddle of cold sweat. It dripped from his forehead, it matted his hair, and he hurt, he ached, his whole body groaned at each movement—

— _oh, little mercies, what have I done—_

—as he fumbled clumsily for his bedside lamp and clicked it on, and it was _blinding_ , painful, he couldn’t bear it, and he whimpered and clicked it off again, cowering in the dark in his soaked sheets, afraid to face his own apartment, _Elim Garak, **get out of bed.**_

Slowly, joints grinding, he crawled out of bed, found the floor with shaking feet. Standing up hurt, and he was dizzy, and he propped himself against the wall by the door and gasped at how much worse this was than he’d remembered.

He dragged himself to the bathroom, groping along the wall like a blind man, and it hurt to touch the wall, it hurt to walk, it hurt to _breathe_ ; he couldn’t face the bathroom light, but he saw himself in the mirror by the faint glow of the night-light and flinched.

His pupils were huge. Sweat was running down his face, down his neck, staining his pyjamas, and yet he was _shivering_ , he was so cold, he couldn’t stop shaking, and his _nose_ was running, he was _snivelling_ , and he raked his hands back through his hair and snarled at himself, “ _You earned this.”_

Fumbling in darkness, he tugged the shower curtain aside and turned on the water; he peeled himself out of his sweat-drenched pyjamas and left them where they fell, and hid in the darkened shower, sitting in the tub, letting the hot water hit him. It wasn’t hot enough; he turned it hotter, hotter, until he was almost concerned that he’d burn himself and not notice, because he couldn’t get warm, he couldn’t stop trembling…

He sat, curled in on himself, letting the water pour over his face, his hair, his back, until the hot water started to run cold and he had no choice but to get out. That, he was sure, was darkly comic; his frantic scrabbling to get out of the tub, to tug his towel down to him, all without standing, as he dripped on the floor – if he wasn’t living it, he’d laugh. He pulled the towel tight around him and huddled on the bath mat, trying to find warmth. _There is nothing warm inside me. Perhaps I’ve died and I just haven’t noticed yet._

Eventually he forced himself into a stand, one hand braced against the toilet, and he pulled his bathrobe off its hook and wrapped himself into it. He looked at himself in the mirror again, and he just couldn’t face shaving, he just couldn’t, couldn’t brush his hair, his teeth, it was all _repugnant—_

_What do I do now?_

Going back to bed felt like surrender. _I won’t!_

Then was it time for breakfast? Nausea twisted his stomach. _No._

He narrowed his eyes. _Elim Garak, you need to eat something._

He stood in the kitchen, in the dark, and quite deliberately ate half a bagel, plain, with small, well-chewed bites.

Two minutes later, he was folded over the toilet, throwing it up, shaking, _Oh, mercy on me, what do I do, what am I going to do?_

He pulled the old sheets from his bed and settled new sheets on the mattress, not tucking them in, not caring, _just get me warm_ , and he huddled under the covers. Hiding there felt like giving in, and so he turned on his bedside lamp again, not letting himself flinch away, waiting to get used to the light.

Waiting, and waiting—

He forced himself to read, turning the pages slowly with trembling fingers, stopping to mop the sweat from his face with a tissue so that it would not drip on his book. His stomach twisted within him, and he was so hungry, and yet the thought of food was repulsive, threatening to overwhelm him; he pushed it away, and sipped water slowly, letting it bathe his tongue. Swallowing hurt.

_I will not give in. I will live my life. I will do this._

He scanned down the page, and realized he had no idea what was going on. Someone was saying something, someone else was in tears, and he didn’t know why – he’d lost the thread, he couldn’t _focus,_ and so he flipped back a few pages, tried to find where he’d gotten lost, and meanwhile his legs had started to cramp, his muscles to curl, and he had to keep pushing them out and pulling them back, and that _hurt_ , but trying to keep still hurt _too_ —

He clenched his fists, pressed them to his face.

The day progressed slowly, inevitably, and he was pulled with it, dragged along a gravel road by a driver who couldn’t hear him screaming. Whether or not he was ready for this, it was here, and he had to face it, just as he was.

Eventually, he decided to live one hour at a time. It might be easier. And that way, every time the minute hand made its slow rotation back to the twelve, he’d be born again, and there’d be one hour less to live through.

At eleven in the morning, he’d managed to read five pages of his book and successfully drink and keep down one glass of water.

At noon, he’d lost that glass and a handful of crackers, and gasped on the bathroom floor, stomach cramping.

At one, he’d sweated through his bathrobe, soaking its lining, and pulling on new pyjamas had taken the better part of ten minutes, spent cursing and yanking and moaning in pain.

At two, his bowels had loosened, and he’d barely made it to the bathroom; he’d rocked back and forth, face in his hands, and it was the sheer mundanity of this that was the worst part, the slow erosion of dignity, bit by bit…

At three, he’d huddled in the shower again, hoping for the water to penetrate his skin and warm him from the inside out. He’d crawled out, and wrapped himself in towels, and pulled out medication for nausea and diarrhea from the mirrored cupboard, and taken exactly what the bottle said, hoping it would stay down.

At four, neither medication had done a damned thing, and he took more, and tried to eat, and lost the whole works in a painful wrenching rush.

At five, he found himself sitting on the floor outside his sewing room, looking at the door, and _no_ , he was not going to go inside; instead, he was going to get to the bathroom as quickly as possible, because he was suddenly in agony, bowels twisting—

At six, his book hit the wall of the living room and slid to the floor, and he bent over, pulling his blanket around himself, shivering, twitching, trying to hide, nowhere to go.

At seven, he took another nausea tablet, another diarrhea tablet. Shouldn’t they be making him drowsy? Perhaps he’d sleep.

At eight, he was _not_ asleep, he was _awake_ , and he couldn’t read, he couldn’t think, he was trapped in this miserable damned apartment with himself and his racing mind, spinning tighter and tighter and tighter—

And at nine he was reaching for the door to the sewing room, hands shaking, body shuddering, sweat dripping, _no, no, get me_ out _of here,raUnt vrerUj’er,_ nu tuhix’I—

* * *

Julian sat on his couch, legs stretched out in front of him, staring at nothing.

There’d been no word from Elim all day. He’d texted him twice, and gotten nothing back.

_Maybe he’s busy._

Busy he might be, but he made time for Julian, he always answered Julian’s texts…

Earlier, on the way back from the convenience store, he’d ducked downstairs and knocked on Elim’s door. There’d been no response. _I guess he wasn’t in…_

But he wasn’t at his store, either. At least, the lights weren’t on, and there was no quietly moving shadow inside, finishing up a suit or doing inventory behind Sunday’s locked door.

_I am thinking too much about this._

A month ago, Elim had given him a key to his apartment. He’d made a little ceremony out of it, had presented it in a little box, tied with a pink ribbon, and Julian had almost wondered if he was about to get a present that he really wasn’t quite prepared for; seeing a key in the box had made him laugh, and Elim had smiled in sly amusement, knowing exactly why Julian’s laughter was tinged with relief.

He very much enjoyed having that key on his keychain. But he’d never used it.

Elim’s privacy was so much a part of him that Julian couldn’t imagine casually coming and going the way he did with Miles or Rijal. He had the key more so he could lock up if he left after Elim did, not so he could get in when Elim wasn’t around. Being in Elim’s apartment when Elim wasn’t there was… weird.

Now he flicked the key with a finger and wondered if he should use it.

He’d spent most of today revising, his trip out to the convenience store (and not at all to peer into Elim’s shop) his only exposure to outside air. He’d beaten himself over the head with mnemonics and flash cards for hours, and now he was rather done, really. _There is only so long the human brain can study images of lacerations and retain any amount of interest._

And he had a long week coming up, didn’t he? Only one call shift, thank God, but lecture and shifts every other day, and it was his ER rotation, which he was rather enjoying. He wanted to do well. He’d function better, run faster, with a really good night’s sleep. _The smart thing to do would be to go to bed now, Julian. Leave it alone, leave_ him _alone, just—_

His phone rang.

He stared at it.

His phone never rang, except for work, and this wasn’t the work ringtone. Elim texted or emailed, mostly; so did his friends. Miles just banged on his door. His parents didn’t have the number. _Who the hell would be calling me? And when did I pick this stupid ringtone?_

The display read **Quark’s** , and that really did not help to clarify matters.

He answered. “Hello?”

“Hello, Doctor!” Quark’s voice oozed from the phone, and Julian had to fight a slight impulse to hold it farther from his ear.

“Quark, how did you get my number?”

“Odo gave it to me.”

“ _Did_ he—” Well, he’d have to talk to him about _that,_ later – wait, never mind that, why would Quark be calling him at ten o’clock on a Sunday night—

_“Oh my God, is someone choking?”_

“Nothing so dramatic, Doctor,” and his heart rate plummeted back down to something like a normal range. “But I do need your help.”

Urgh, what did that mean? “I’m listening.”

“It’s Garak. He’s… look, just get over here, all right?” The line disconnected in his ear, and he found himself staring at his phone, dead in his hand.

_What?_

* * *

As he pushed open the door to Quark’s, its usual clamour of sound washed over him: Dabo wheel going _ktik ktik ktik,_ the clink of glasses, the babble of conversation. His eyes scanned the bar, looking for Quark, and caught on something else, quite unexpected:

Here was Elim, sitting at the bar, his head in his hands. There was an empty bottle of kanar in front of him, drained to its dregs. Another sat next to it, apparently just opened; a little glass nestled up against it, waiting to be filled. _What?_

His hair was a mess, falling forward over his ears, tangled. His clothes were wrinkled, actually _wrinkled_ – it was hard to look at, almost embarrassing, and he found himself fighting a flinch. _I don’t… what?_

Quark slid up beside him, and Julian almost started; he’d barely noticed him in his general state of shock.

He kept his voice low. “Quark, what’s going on?”

“You tell me, Doctor,” and Quark threw him a significant look. “He’s been in here forty-five minutes, and he’s drinking as if someone’s going to yank it away from him. And look at him.” He frowned, pursing his lips. “I don’t like it.”

“Surely he’s allowed to have a drink, Quark…” But Julian didn’t believe it even as the words left his lips; this was weird, this was wrong _._

“A drink? Sure. An entire bottle of kanar to himself? Sure. In forty-five minutes? I don’t want to have to call an ambulance, _Doctor_.” Quark’s sparse brows lifted, his expression clear:  _Fix this._

“Umm… right. Let me, uh…” But what should he – and how—

“I know you’re here, Julian…” _Oh, his voice…_

And Elim laughed a little to himself, and rubbed his eyes. “I knew you were here the second you walked in. I knew the moment Quark called you. Hello, my dear; have you come to save me from myself?”

Quark faded discreetly into the background as Julian stared, taking Elim in: flushed, sweating, sick _,_ and more drunk than he’d ever seen him – his voice was hoarse and scraping, and this didn’t make any sense _,_ _what have I missed, what is going on?_

“Garak… are you all right?”

“Much more all right than I should be, given how much I’ve had to drink. Quark, I am beginning to think you water your kanar.” As he spoke, he poured himself another little glass of blue kanar, dripping viscous from the bottle; he threw it back in one gulp, and rested his head in his hands again, pale beyond pale.

“Garak…” _What do I do?_

All he could do, for now, was to sit down next to him, angled towards him, trying to get a look at his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Julian, have I ever told you how unattractive it is when you are obvious?” The words were delivered pleasantly, in a strange approximation of Elim’s usual conversational tone, and Julian’s face stung as if he’d been slapped.

_I – but I—_

_Push it down. Start over._ “May I join you for a drink?”

“Much better, my dear; by all means,” and Elim gestured to Quark. “Another glass, please?”

Quark’s expression was dubious. Julian nodded at him, _it’s okay,_ and Quark slid him a little glass; it was cool in Julian’s hand.

Slowly, carefully, Elim poured them each a glassful of kanar. His hand was shaking; the bottle rattled sharply against the glasses. _This is insane._

“A toast, my dear.” Elim lifted his little glass, stared at it, smiled. “To richly earned rewards.”

His glass hung in air, waiting for Julian to acknowledge the toast; instead, Julian studied him, trying to catch any clue he could. One part of him noted a faint line of sparse stubble, tracing along his cheek and chin: Elim hadn’t shaved. Another part watched his eyes, and thought, _he still hasn’t looked at me once._

Not sure what else to do, Julian tapped his glass against Elim’s and sipped the kanar, thick and sweet. Elim downed the entire glass at once, and Julian saw his face twitch for a moment in revulsion. _He looks sick to his stomach. What is he doing here?_

“Have you earned a reward, Garak?”

“Oh, yes. Many times over.” His voice rasped.

“Then we’re celebrating.”

At that, Elim flashed a look at him, and something was wrong with his eyes: they were darker than usual, than their typical almost transparent blue. _I need a better look –_ he leaned in—

Immediately Elim turned away, offering Julian his back. “If you’re going to be nosy, you can leave.”

“I think perhaps you had better come with me. We can go back to your place, have a few drinks…?”

“I'm fine here, thanks.” His voice cold—

“I really think—”

“I said I’m _fine,”_ and as he turned sharply to glare at Julian, he banged an elbow against the full bottle of kanar, setting it rocking, clumsily drunk, _this is impossible!_

Julian caught the kanar as it reeled, and suddenly realized that now the bottle was in his hands – _keep it there, Julian!_ – and so he pulled it out of Elim’s reach, sliding it over to Quark’s side of the bar, and now Elim’s face contorted in anger.

“Give me my bottle back!”

He had to try to talk some sense into him, had to try something other than sitting here watching him drink and pretend. “Listen, there is something wrong with you. You are sick.”

“I am _not sick.”_

He kept his voice low. “You are sweating. You are shaking. You are nauseated and in pain. I can see it from here.”

“Ah, the workings of the brilliant medical mind—”

“Stop it, Garak, _listen_ to me—”

“I don’t appear to have any choice, as you won’t _shut up._ ” Now Elim’s voice was rising, spiralling up, ripping painfully from his throat.

 _“Damn it, Elim—_ ”

 _“Don’t call me that!”_ His eyes were wide and furious, their pupils huge in the bar’s dim light, and Julian couldn’t let himself be shaken, had to get through to him.

“You need a doctor!”

 _“No!”_ And Elim half-rose from his bar stool, shaking, dripping sweat, his hands working as if he was about to hit someone, _hit me? This is surreal!_

Quark’s eyes were darting back and forth between the two of them, his expression alarmed; his posture screamed _what are you doing?_ Julian couldn’t blame him; Quark had called him here to calm Elim down, and here he was making him crazy _–_ people were turning, swivelling in their chairs, the Dabo wheel had stopped, this was getting worse and worse _—_

“Garak,” and now he forced his voice low, kept it soft and imploring, “Garak, everyone is staring.”

Hard and angry, “ _Let them stare._ ”

“You don’t mean that.” He looked at Elim, trying to connect; Elim stared back at him, challenging, daring. “Now, you need to go to a doctor. You can either come with me now, quietly, or Quark is going to call for an ambulance. That will be loud and noisy, and will attract a great deal of attention. Which would you prefer?”

A frozen, stretched moment, as Elim looked at him, hands shaking, furious and trapped, and all he could do was look back, eyes pleading, _please..._

Elim’s voice was a hiss. “Very well, Julian. You win. I’ll go with you. But I will _not_ go to a doctor.”

 _“Garak—_ ”

“I don’t need to be _diagnosed,_ Julian. I know very well what is wrong with me. Just…”

And suddenly all the fury seemed to seep from him, leaving him boneless, frail and shaking.

“…just get me home…”

* * *

He’d half-walked, half-carried Elim back to the apartment, the older man heavy on his shoulder, his usual careful grace absent. He’d braced him against the toilet as Elim vomited up kanar, had gotten him to his bedroom; now Elim was unconscious on his bed, atop the sheets, still in his wrinkled clothes, his normally cool skin radiating heat, and Julian sat next to him, staring.

The sheets were a mess. The bedroom was a mess. The _apartment_ was a mess; at least, it was as messy as he had ever seen it. Granted, that still wasn’t as messy as his own apartment probably was right now, but still…

The bathroom was unthinkably dirty for someone with Elim’s standards. There were wet towels on the floor, pill bottles out on the bathroom sink. He’d noted the names. Dimenhydrinate. _Nausea._ Loperamide. _Diarrhea._

The soft blanket that usually rested in neat folds atop the back of the couch was a snarled pile of fabric, drooping half off the couch to the carpet.

There was a book on the floor. On the _floor._ It was sprawled spine up, pages down, as if dropped, and some of the pages were creased. He’d hissed through his teeth when he’d seen that. Elim treating a book that way? _Sacrilege._ Why on earth would he leave it there…?

Nothing made sense, and now Elim was out cold, and there were no answers here for him tonight.

_I’ve got a change of clothes here, got my toothbrush – I can always run up to my apartment tomorrow to grab anything I’ve forgotten._

Tonight, Elim shouldn’t be alone.

Julian lay atop the sheets next to him, wrapped in a blanket tugged down from the linen closet, and counted his stertorous breaths.


	4. day three

His phone burst into shouting life with a cacophony of rooster noises and alarm bells, and he grabbed it and muted it before he was even awake.

He froze for a moment, breathing hard, phone in his hand; for a second he was simply in Elim’s apartment, in the dark, and then suddenly the previous evening came crashing back, cold on his skin. _Oh. Here I am again._

Elim, next to him, hadn’t moved, and that was a strange miracle, wasn’t it? _Miracles are usually good things. I’m not sure if this is good._

Elim usually slept so lightly – it had been months before he’d stopped waking at Julian’s slightest movement – but last night, he’d barely stirred. _Probably the kanar._ This time it had been Julian sleeping lightly, waking often, listening to Elim’s breathing. He knew better than to touch Elim when he was sleeping. It would have been good, though, to be able to run a hand over his forehead, to tuck his hair back behind his ears, to do _something_.

He crept out of bed, moving quietly, and made his way to the bathroom. A few minutes of effort had the bathroom a bit more presentable, the wet towels now piled by the apartment’s front door in a laundry tote, and he breathed a bit easier once at least that room looked something like it ought to.

When he slid the shower curtain aside to climb in, a splash of water spattered the bathroom floor. The curtain was wet at the bottom. Elim had one of those stupid fancy shower curtains that had a vinyl inner liner and a fabric outer curtain; it was really pointless and a source of minor friction, because Julian always forgot and tucked them both into the tub, and Elim did not like the fabric curtain getting wet. And this was a small thing, such a small thing… _But it’s wet._

He showered, not enjoying Elim’s luxurious bath soap and shampoo as much as he usually would. He shaved, and Elim’s razor was still much nicer than his own, as was his shaving cream, and that wasn’t really particularly important today either. At least his toothbrush was his own.

A few minutes later he’d tugged on his spare set of clothing, and as he was frowning into the bathroom mirror, completing his daily battle with his hair, he heard a sound—

A choked moan—

He was in the bedroom before he realized it, kneeling beside the bed, and here was Elim, trying to open his eyes and failing.

“I’m here, shh, it’s okay…”

As he heard Julian’s voice, Elim froze for a second, eyes still closed; his expression twisted, and he rolled himself slowly over to face away from Julian. The muscles of his back were working, twitching under his shirt.

_I don’t know what to do…_

Well, he’d definitely be hungover; that was probably the place to start. “Can I get you some water? Something for pain? Could you eat anythi—”

—and before he could finish speaking, Elim was suddenly moving from the bed, sheets tossed to the floor, half-running to the bathroom, almost limping; the door slammed and Julian could hear him throwing up, horribly inelegant and uncontrolled, and he wanted to hide his face, to vanish from the room, _I shouldn’t hear this, nobody should hear this._

He heard the toilet flush, and then nothing.

He waited a minute, another; still nothing.

He rose, and moved to the bathroom; he rapped lightly on the door. “Elim? Are you all right?” Still nothing, _what do I—_

“Elim!” He pushed on the door; it wasn’t locked, and when it swung open, here was Elim, arms crossed on the toilet seat and his head buried in those crossed arms, shoulders shaking.

_Is he… crying?_

_What the hell_ is _this?_

“Elim, it’s okay…” He dropped to his knees on the bathroom tiles, tried to put his arms around him.

 _“Don’t touch me.”_ The words were hissed from between clenched teeth, and Elim looked up at Julian, his eyes fierce and red-rimmed, their pupils huge. Tears stained his face, and his nose was running, smearing; he was a sad mess, and it was absurd and strange and heartbreaking.

 _Wait…_ A faint _click,_ somewhere in the back of his brain. _His pupils are dilated, despite the light. He is in pain._ The sweating, the running nose… _Something, something_ , mnemonics scrolling in his mind…

He found himself speaking, almost whispering, “Elim, what is this?”

Elim’s voice was lifeless, a rustle of dry leaves. “What do you think it is?”

 _I don’t want to answer that question._ Not enough information, and what did he really know? Nothing, that was what; he really shouldn’t make assumptions.

“I’m, uh… I’m going to get you a glass of water.”

“Do as you like.” Elim laid his head back down on his arms, yawning, and it was as if Julian had vanished entirely from his awareness.

He took his time in the kitchen, letting the water run ‘til it was cold while he slowly worked an ice cube loose from the tray; it bought him time to breathe.

When he re-entered the bathroom, Elim hadn’t moved. He looked at him, at the lines of his back, the misery seeping from him, and thought for a moment.

The water was briefly rested on the edge of the sink as Julian cracked the dimenhydrinate and loperamide in turn, shaking out one of the first and two of the second. He offered them to Elim along with the water, hands open.

“Here.”

Elim sniffled, sighed, and his gaze crept to Julian’s palm and the tablets resting there. One of his hands rose to take the medication; it was shaking slightly, and for a strange moment Julian felt almost as if he was coaxing a frightened bird to his palm. _Hold still, don’t startle it…_

Elim washed the tablets down with a gulp of water. For a moment he wasn’t sure he’d keep them down, Julian saw it in his face, but he managed it.

His voice was calmer now. “Thank you.”

 _This is more than just a hangover…_ “How long have you been like this?”

“Like what?”

Julian looked at him, and Elim couldn’t meet his eyes.

“It started on Saturday. Well… to be more accurate, on Friday night.”

“Is it the flu, do you think?” And as he said it, he doubted himself – _but I need his answers, not my own._

“It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it.” Elim’s voice sighed, fading as he spoke; he sounded exhausted, and Julian ached just hearing it. _No life in him…_

“Are you – I mean, I have to get to lecture soon, I – are you going to be—”

“I’ll be fine by myself, if that’s what you’re wondering, Julian.” His face was so pale, dark circles under his eyes, but he looked directly at Julian for a moment, and his gaze was steady. His voice was diffident, and this was let’s pretend again; this was Elim, deliberately being fine. “Certainly there are better things you could be doing than watching me vomit.”

He did sound a bit more like himself… so maybe it would be fine. _Please let it be fine._

Still, a little emphasis wouldn’t hurt. He lowered his brows, frowning. “You need to eat.”

“Please don’t mention eating.” Was there a slight touch of humour in Elim’s voice, there? _Wishful thinking._

“You need to at least _drink,_ Elim—”

“I will drink.”

“And I’ll have my phone with me. All day. All right?”

“Fine,” and now Elim’s voice was tired again, disinterested; apparently Julian was dismissed, and Elim closed his eyes, blue veins visible in his pale eyelids.

“I’ll… I’ll see you later.”

“As you like.”

_You stubborn ass, Elim._

He lifted a hand to stroke his dark, tangled hair, and Elim’s eyes flashed open, pinning him in place; he was somehow abruptly furious, fighting for dignity in yesterday’s wrinkled clothes, and Julian caught himself in air, pulled his hand away.

He wanted to apologize, but wasn’t sure for what, and meanwhile Elim was curled back into himself, giving every evidence of wanting Julian to _just go away_.

Fine. He rose and left the bathroom, and gathered his things from the apartment; he wrapped himself into the coat Elim had given him, absently welcoming its warmth, and headed upstairs to grab his scrubs before catching his bus.

As he walked, his fingers teased the coat’s fabric, rubbing along the grain, stroking it to smoothness, making it right.

* * *

He sat in darkness, quietly determining what was left to him.

Food appeared to be completely out of the question. Even the thought of eating sent him crawling to the bathroom to retch uselessly; there was nothing left to bring up. The nausea pills he’d been taking so faithfully appeared to be completely ineffective. He continued to take one every four hours anyway, on the off chance that Fate would smile.

The tablets for diarrhea appeared to be more effective today, which was a mercy. There was only so much one could stand, and there was no attractive, melancholic drama to be found in losing control of one’s bowels.

He was able to drink. Small amounts appeared to be the key, and so he rationed water as if he was back in the Mekar Wilderness, trying to get back to the training facility without being found, and why did his mind kept drifting, dreaming, where was his focus?

The yawning did not appear to want to stop. He couldn’t control it in any way, and so he ignored it.

He was cold, always so cold, and so he turned his thermostat as high as it would go and wrapped himself in a quilt, and the shivering was helpful, really, and to be welcomed.

His nose ran, and ran, and ran; he did his best with tissues, and pretended it wasn’t happening, because, again, he had no control over it, no control, none…

Any light at all was too bright, and so now he sat in darkness, always in darkness, underground, all alone – _mercies_ , and here were the tears again, and he couldn’t stop them. _Am I really like this? Am I this weak?_  These ridiculous floods of sentiment poured over him, overwhelming him, and he couldn’t stop the sobbing.

At least he could mitigate it somewhat with careful control of his thoughts. He fought with his mind, trying to pull it back into shape, trying to constrain its slow dissolution.

Things he did not appear to be allowed to think about included:

Cardassia. In any way. Positive or negative. The sun, the plants, the people, the job, the job, the _job—_

Julian. His mind. His smile. His kindness.

Books. Because the stories wove into him and pulled out emotions he couldn’t control, and also they kept leading back to Julian.

Films. For the same reasons.

Music, again, the _same_ reasons, all his usual escapes denied.

Which left only his life now to think about, his little _shop,_ and that was revolting _._

And so now, apparently, his options had been reduced to sitting here by himself, in the dark, drinking cool water very slowly, thinking about nothing, watching his body twitch, his legs work, gooseflesh on his arms and legs, waiting…

And there was _nothing_ in his sewing room, nothing there at _all_ —

* * *

Breathe in, breathe out, _relax, Julian, it’s going to be fine._

He sat on the bench in the locker room, calming down, listening to his heartbeat, his hands resting on his thighs. It was becoming a bit of a ritual, now; the hospital was less overwhelming than it had been, but it was still a bit daunting, and the ER rotation, as much fun as it was, could feel a bit like being yanked underwater by a treacherous undertow. One minute everything was fine, the next you couldn’t breathe, and you just had to hope you’d come up for air eventually.

So he’d found it was in his best interests to sit for a minute or two while he could, and think about nothing, and centre himself. He pulled in air, let it hiss out through clenched teeth, cycling: four seconds in, four seconds hold, four seconds out…

It was a bit tricky to think about nothing today, with Elim curled up in the back of his mind, shivering.

_Four seconds in, hold…_

He’d ducked out of lecture quickly, not really wanting to talk to anyone, and especially not wanting to chat with his friends over lunch as per usual. He’d needed to be alone, to think.

_Four seconds out, one, two…_

He’d dug through his bag for his lunch, and realized he’d not brought one, _damn it,_ and had then had to spend actual money to buy one of the sad pre-made ones at the cafeteria. He’d barely tasted it, anyway, what with trying hard to think while not actually thinking. He’d tried to distract himself with a little bit of  The Never-Ending Sacrifice, and that had been a miserable failure: he could barely follow it, it was too complicated – and he was having trouble holding the plot in his mind anyway, because it was so full.

_Hold, hold—_

He’d kept circling back to Elim, and what was wrong, and what _was_ wrong?

_I think I might know… shhh, breathe in—_

He let himself drift away from the thought. Not enough evidence, really. Elim had the flu. It was discomforting to see because he’d never seen Elim so ill, that was all. _Common things are common._ _Don’t look for zebras; when you hear hoof-beats, it’s probably a horse. Time will tell the tale._

But you couldn’t tell _what_ tale, could you?

— _two, three, four, exhale…_

And he opened his eyes, breathing slow and steady, and caught a glimpse of himself in the locker room mirror. It still felt strange to see himself in scrubs, head-to-toe green, but it was less strange every day. _I’m becoming a doctor. By immersion, if nothing else. Drop me in the deep end and watch me swim._

And speaking of which, it was time; he smiled at himself in the mirror, and plugged his nose, and closed his eyes, and jumped headfirst into the water: hello, emergency room, _here I go again!_

And here he was actually able to _stop_ thinking, to lose himself in the work: a possible infarct, refer to cardiology; a minor laceration on a young woman’s arm, and he was permitted to suture it himself under the watchful eye of the resident; pneumonia – take a sputum sample for culturing, and prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics in the meantime, um, let’s try azithromycin; cases, cases, every one different, and he ran back and forth, watching and doing and learning.

 _This feels good. This feels_ right.

He flew, wings on his feet and a smile on his face, soaring away from the quiet turmoil inside him—

And then he was yanked back down, pulled directly into the centre of the vortex by the sweating, sad-eyed middle-aged man before him, complaining of back pain, “Please, doctor, I can’t handle it, I can’t _work,_ my doctor’s away, please, just give me _something—”_

And his pupils were dilated, and there was gooseflesh on his arms, and he was anxious and sweating and shifting and there was just something, something didn’t feel right.

He consulted with his resident, quickly, and she looked at him with brows raised.

“What do you think is going on here, Julian?”

“I… I think there _is_ pain… but I think he’s drug-seeking.”

“All right. So what are you going to do?”

“I’m… not going to give him anything. Just naproxen. For the pain. All right?”

“Sounds good.”

And it did sound good, at least in theory; he wasn’t going to help this man dig himself in any deeper, and that was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? _First, do no harm._

But it didn’t feel good. It felt awful. The man cursed at him and shouted, and Julian pulled into himself, put his shields up and let it all bounce off, and finally, when the man left, his eyes red with tears, Julian found himself sitting, staring, in the consultation room, and all he could see were the man’s eyes, they’d been desperate, they’d been _Elim’s eyes—_

* * *

He heard footsteps in the hall, and he lifted his head from his hands to see his resident, standing just inside the door, looking at him.

“Are you okay, Julian?”

He tried to keep his voice from shaking. “Yeah. Sorry… that just that hit me hard.”

A hand on his shoulder, comforting. “I bet. It never gets any easier, either. Tell you what: take a few minutes. Grab a snack, okay?”

He did. And while he ate, he pulled up Medscape on his phone, and he read, and he thought, and he prepared.

* * *

“Hello, it’s me!” He rapped on the door, then unlocked it; if Elim was anything like how he’d been this morning, he wouldn’t be hopping up to answer the door, so surely it was all right to let himself in. _This is not how I thought I’d first use this key… put that away, Julian; you’re busy._

Bag of groceries dangling from one hand, he peered around the apartment. It was dark, no lights lit, and it was hot; did Elim have the thermostat set to full?

“Elim? Where are you?”

A soft sigh, hissing from the darkness… “Here.”

Elim was curled up on the couch beneath his blanket; Julian could just make him out, a miserable shape, becoming slightly more visible as his eyes got used to the dark.

“I’ve brought you—”

_“Quiet, please.”_

He pressed his lips together, then tried again, more quietly this time. “I’ve brought you some things you might need. Some acetaminophen. Some electrolyte-replacement drinks. Some food you might be able to keep down – crackers, meal-replacement drinks—”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.” His tone was sharp, and Julian bit his lip.

“No. You didn’t. But I did it anyway. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

“Go through what, exactly?”

_You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you. You’re going to make me ask._

Julian sighed, and put down the groceries. He sat down on the floor, next to the couch, not looking at Elim, marshalling his defences for a quiet moment.

“What kind of drug is it?”

Silence.        

It hung there between them, _oh, God, was I wrong? I was wrong. It’s the flu. He’ll – what will he—_

And then Elim’s voice, matter-of-fact and slightly mocking. “You’re the doctor. You tell me.”

He wasn’t wrong.

_I wish I had been._

“I’m not a doctor yet. And it’s… an opioid, I think.”

“Correct. You _are_ clever.” _Ouch_.

“What opioid?”

“Not one you would recognize.” He recognized Elim’s tone, the closing door. _No. You don’t get to do that._

“Tell me anyway.”

“Why?”

 _Damn it._ “Because I care about you.”

“The more fool you.”

_“Elim—”_

He heard another sigh, and saw Elim’s posture change slightly, shifting beneath the blanket. “It is called verkecin. It is used in Cardassia only, as far as I have been able to determine. No one here seems to have any idea what it is or where to get it.”

“So you’ve looked.”

“Yes.”

“Why…” and he wound down, tried again, “how…”

“I will spare you the trouble of finishing that sentence. I have been taking verkecin on a daily basis for… at least seven years, now. I began taking it while still in Cardassia.”

Unknown territory, only hinted at, never openly discussed. _I guess it’s time._ “When you were…”

“Employed by the government.”

“I… see.” It was more than Elim had ever given him. It wasn’t even close to enough.

A soft laugh, containing no humour at all. “I doubt that you do. But here is what you need to know:  my work sometimes involved physical activity. It could be quite strenuous. On one such occasion, I was injured. I was prescribed these to help with my pain. When the prescription ran out, I requested more. I was given more. This situation continued quite happily until I was required to leave Cardassia. Fortunately, I stayed in contact with one of my trusted associates, who had access to an ongoing supply. Unfortunately, this associate has now absented himself, and left me… as you see me.”

Elim’s voice was soft, his tone almost dismissive as if none of it mattered, and Julian wasn’t sure what to do. This was an unexpected flow of information, washing over him; it was like a breach in a dam – even if you saw the crack, you didn’t really think the thing would _break._

 _Learn to swim, Julian._ “Verkecin is habit-forming.”

“Very.”

“Did you know?” _Does he ever not?_

“Yes.”

“You took it anyway.”

“I was in pain. People who are in pain sometimes do rash things.”

And that was true. Most painkillers of any particular worth were habit-forming to some degree, and so how could he fault him for taking the only thing that would work? _I can’t, that’s how._

“But now… you can’t get any more.”

“As I’ve said.”

 _Can I believe that?_ Never mind, shelve it. “Are you still in pain?”

“Only the self-inflicted variety, I fear.” What did that mean? _Shelve that, too._

“What is withdrawal from this drug like?” If it was a typical opioid, he knew what to expect, but this was something he didn’t know about. _I need to learn, I need to know._

“Oh, no worse than a severe flu, or so I am given to understand. I should be mostly over it in approximately a week.”

“A week. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

A stretching, disdainful silence, and he winced.

“Have you… ever tried to stop taking them before?”

“Yes.”

He wanted to ask, _but you couldn’t?_ Except that was obvious, wasn’t it, and Elim must know that it would be. He couldn’t imagine Elim unable to control himself, unable to stop doing something that was hurting him. _They must be incredibly addictive._

And, Elim being who he was, that meant…

“Do you have any left?”

A pause, weighing his options. “I have five tablets.”

“Where are they?”

And Elim rolled over on the couch, and he saw the whites of his eyes flashing in the dark room. “Why?”

“I’m going to get rid of them.”

There was quiet anger in Elim’s voice now. “That is not your decision to make.”

“If I’m going to help you through this, I need to have some input here.” He had to either lay down the ground rules now, or else get out now. _I don’t want to make that decision yet._

“I have not asked for your _help._ I don’t need _help_.”

But he couldn’t do anything if Elim wouldn’t let him – _I’ve got to make him hear me—_

“Totally self-sufficient, are you? Really.” He tilted his head, let his own voice grow mocking _._ “And that’s why you’re lying here on your couch, in the dark, feeling sorry for yourself. Well, you certainly seem to be doing fine on your own. Have you even eaten anything all day?”

Silence.

“Have you at least been drinking?”

“Yes.”

“And taking the nausea—”

 _“Yes, Doctor.”_ His voice like a slap—

“Stop calling me that!”

“I will when you stop treating me like a patient and start treating me like a person.”

“What, a person who wants to be left alone in the dark to suffer?”

“It’s my choice!” Just a touch of shrillness in his voice, there, and it made the skin on Julian’s arms prickle unpleasantly, it was _wrong._

“Nope. Sorry. It’s not.” _I won’t let you do this to yourself._

“How do you know this isn’t what I deserve?” Almost accusatory now, _my God, what is this?_

“Nobody deserves this!”

“Aren’t you supposed to respect the wishes of your patients, _Doctor_ Bashir? Even if you don’t agree?” He was pushing now, prodding Julian, trying to make him angry—

_It’s working!_

“Usually, yes _._ Luckily for you, I am not a doctor, and you are not my patient. And if you think I’m just going to walk out of here and leave you like this, you are _mad._ Now, I am going to get you some more water, and you are going to drink it, and some of this meal replacement on ice. Slowly. And in the meantime, I am going to draw you a warm bath. But first of all, I am going to get those pills and flush them down the _toilet_ , because if you think I am going to leave you here alone with them again you are not only mad, you are an _idiot,_ do you _understand_ me, Elim?”

“I’m _not_ going to take them!” Elim had pushed himself up on the couch; he was half-sitting now, furious, trying to shout but his voice was breaking, _oh, I hate this!_

“Don’t be so goddamned _obvious!_ If you won’t take them, what do you care what I do with them? Who are you trying to _fool?”_

He saw Elim’s hands clench into fists—

And saw the moment when something snapped inside him, and his head dropped into his hands, fingers twisting in dark hair.

“They’re…” He could barely hear him, and he leaned in closer. “They’re in my sewing room. Second drawer of the machine cabinet. At the very back. You’ll have to tug quite hard to get the drawer to open all the way.” His voice was now completely calm, barely audible, but still his fingers worked and clenched, and Julian bit his lip.

He found the tablets just as Elim had said, buried among a morass of complicated metal parts and loose twists of fat, multi-stranded thread. He’d never have found them on his own. _God, I would never have looked._

They looked so harmless: little pink ovoids, rattling in their vial. Yes, there were five left. He flushed them, and wished he could flush the vial too; he made do with burying it at the bottom of the kitchen garbage, out of sight. _He doesn’t need to see it, and I… don’t want to look at it._

Elim was rolled up in his blanket now, his face hidden. Julian could hear long, shuddering breaths, and clenched his fists at his sides; his nails dug into his palms as he listened to Elim fighting for control. _God, he’s crying, I can’t handle this, I don’t want to be here, I_ hate _this—_

He’d done the right thing. He had _._ He knew he had.

_So why do I feel so goddamned awful?_

“Is that all of them?” He kept his voice calm, non-confrontational, making it normal.

“Yes.” Gasped between breaths—

“Can you get any more?”

Angrily now, “No, I’ve already told you _no—”_

“How do you contact your supplier?”

“This is _not_ your _concern,_ Julian—”

“It _is._ ” And he ran his fingers through his hair, shook his head, mouth twisting. “If we’re going to keep doing… what we’re doing, it is.”

That hit home. He could see it in how Elim uncoiled for a moment, the blanket shifting, and then curled in around himself, tighter.

“I… Email. Always email.”

“All right. We are going to block his address. And because I know you are not stupid enough to email this person with your standard email address, we are going to delete the one you _do_ use.”

A flash of eyes, and a venomous glare. “Do you honestly think that would stop me?”

“No. No, I don’t. But… if this is going to work…” He swept out an arm, trying futilely to encompass everything they’d become, everything Elim was to him, “I need to see you do it anyway. Because otherwise I can never trust you.” Horrible; it hurt to say it, and Elim looked up at him, mouth open.

Elim’s laptop lay forgotten on the floor, next to the television; he brought it to the couch, adjusted to its dimmest brightness, and watched as Elim did as he’d asked. It was strange and exposed, and he hated it, and when it was done he didn’t feel any better, not at all.

“Thank you.”

Elim wouldn’t look at him.

“Now, I’m going to see about that food and that bath. Is there anything else that you need me to do?” He kept his voice matter-of-fact.

There was silence for a moment, and then a sigh. “Would you please put a sign in my shop window?”

“Certainly.” Formal and icily polite, both of them playing the game. “What would you like it to say?”

“‘Closed due to illness. We apologize for the inconvenience.’”

“I’d be happy to.”


	5. day four

He came awake with a gasp, confused, heart pounding as his phone jangled at him from the floor. _Where – what—_

Oh – he was on Elim’s couch, that was right, and his phone was… yes, it was down there, on the floor near him. He reached down to toggle it off, and took a moment to exhale, long and slow.

He’d started the night on the bed next to Elim, hoping to offer some kind of comfort through proximity, but it hadn’t helped. Without the kanar in his system, Elim had barely slept at all, and the few times he’d managed to drop off, Julian’s smallest shift in position had awakened him again. The worst part was that he hadn’t said anything; he’d just stiffened, and Julian had heard his breathing change, and had been so angry at himself, _you are not helping him at all!_

He’d finally moved to the couch, hoping that this way at least one of them would get some decent sleep. _Must have been Elim, because it sure as hell wasn’t me._ God, terrible dreams…

He sat up and stretched, and slid from the couch, padding to the bathroom to empty his bladder and brush his teeth. Today the shower curtain was as it should be, and he took some comfort in that; he’d been careful to keep it out of the tub when he’d drawn the bath for Elim yesterday. The warm bath had seemed to help Elim, too; he’d stayed in ‘til the water had begun to cool, and when Julian had helped him to get out he’d moved a little easier. _I think. I hope._ Well, perhaps he could draw him another bath before he left; for now, he scrubbed himself down quickly, enjoying the warm water and how it pelted his muscles, easing some tension out of him.

He turned off the water and reached for a towel, and as he stepped out of the bath—

—he heard Elim stir, and he was in motion, faster than thought, into the bedroom, grabbing the bucket he’d set by the bed and holding it under Elim’s head as he retched—

Half-awake and miserable, Elim looked at him with wide-pupilled, humiliated eyes, and here he was, naked and dripping, holding a plastic bucket for his lover to vomit into.

He smiled, trying to make it okay. “It’s all right…”

Elim did not dignify that statement with an answer.

“Come on,” and he put the bucket down, held out his hands, “let’s get you to the bathroom, brush your teeth—”

“I can _walk_ , Doctor!” The words were snarled at him, and he raised his hands, palms empty.

Elim managed to get to the bathroom on his own, and closed the door firmly behind him. Julian busied himself with throwing on his scrubs, and then with changing Elim’s sweat-soaked sheets and laying out fresh pyjamas for him. God, there was nothing simple in the man’s closet; every set of pyjamas he owned seemed to be made of silk or satin, and there was no good honest cotton or terrycloth to be found. He couldn’t imagine sweating into silk. _Elim, don’t you own a single jogging suit?_ Stupid question.

Elim was still in the bathroom. All right, there was more he could do, he was sure. He checked on the meal replacement drinks, chilled in the fridge; five were cold and ready to go, along with ten bottles of electrolyte drink. There was ice in the freezer. There was a pitcher of water in the fridge. There was a fresh blanket on the couch. And now there was nothing more he could do.

He ate his own breakfast, that same bowl of stupid sugary cereal that had pleased him so three days ago; it always delighted him that Elim kept a box of the stuff on the shelf for him, and now it wasn’t any goddamned fun at all. _Eat it anyway, Julian; you are about to be at work for at least twenty-four hours, and you need all the help you can get._

In the same spirit of indulging himself in advance, he treated himself to a cup of Elim’s extremely nice coffee, with his fancy organic milk and cane sugar. Nothing but the best for Elim Garak. _Simple pleasures, right, Elim? Right…_

He finished his coffee, and washed his mug and bowl and spoon, and made himself a simple lunch – a cheese sandwich and an apple – and bagged it up for later, and Elim was _still_ in the bathroom.

He knocked on the door. “Elim?”

Nothing.

 _Goddamn it—_ “Elim, let me in!”

Still nothing – he pushed, and the door was locked—

“Elim, don’t make me break it down—” He looked around for something to hit it with – it was a thin door, a cheap door – _I could probably_ kick _through it—_

And the door opened, and there was Elim, toothbrush in hand, face expressionless.

“Is there something else you’d like me to do in order for you to trust me, Julian?” His voice was calm.

_You – were you testing me?_

_Did I just fail?_

“I’ve… I’ve got to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Elim closed the door in his face.

* * *

He heard the click of the apartment door behind Julian, the echo of footsteps fading down the hall.

And now he was truly alone, sitting on the lid of the toilet, staring at the bottle of sleeping pills he’d hidden in the space behind the bathroom cabinet. They’d once lived in his bedside drawer. When Julian’s overnight visits had become a regular event rather than an unexpected delight, he’d relocated them so as to avoid unwanted questions. _How clever I am. I always think ahead..._

Now he stared at them, thinking ahead.

If he took one, he might sleep.

If he took ten… who could say?

And if he took them all, well, with Julian gone for twenty-four hours, the result would be a foregone conclusion.

No more pain. No more _humiliation._ No more endless days and sleepless nights, no more cold, no more loneliness…

He’d been living like this for years. He’d considered this option before. But there had always been a reason to go on for one more day, if only to avoid giving satisfaction to those in Cardassia who would no doubt receive the agent-termination report with a certain amount of self-congratulatory pleasure.

Was spite enough reason to live?

It didn’t feel like it, today…

_And who will find your body, Elim? Are you going to give him that wonderful gift?_

He didn’t want to think about that. It wouldn’t be his problem, after all. He’d be well out of it.

 _So that will be your legacy, then._ _Death, and more death. Well done, assassin._

But really, Julian hadn’t signed up for anything like this, had he? This entire shattered situation wasn’t fair to him. As far as Julian had known, he’d gotten involved with a clever man who liked the same books as he did, who took him to nice places, who was sweet to make him smile and sour to make him laugh, who was an absolute fool for him in every way that mattered and a few that didn’t.

He had not known about the disgraced killer, whose name was a death sentence should he ever go home.

He had not known about the _addict._

Perhaps he’d be doing Julian a favour by removing himself from the equation before Julian could ever find out just how badly he’d been misled…

But the problem of the body… well, he could resolve that. He knew a hundred ways to hide a body. There were always places nobody would think to look. He could dress, and call a cab, and disappear.

_Ah. And Elim Garak will vanish without a trace from yet another lover’s life. Even better. He won’t know if you’re dead or just gone. He’ll always wonder. How compassionate. What a kind repayment for everything he’s given you._

He squeezed the little vial tight in his hand—

* * *

Call shifts were a blur at the best of times.

This was not the best of times.

Julian ran and ran and _ran_ , fetching and carrying and helping and being everyone’s auxiliary arms and legs and brain—

The ER was wildly busy, overflowing with patients, and he was spun from case to case without time to latch on and brace himself in between. Apparently, since he’d done so well suturing that laceration yesterday, the gods had decided he was now going to have to suture everybody _;_ all day long he plied his trade with needle and thread. _Heh, Elim will laugh when I tell him –_ his mouth quirked in a smile, and then he remembered, and the smile faded.

But there was no time to worry, no time for anger or pity; right now he was needed _here_ and he was lost in the rush.

He devoured his cheese sandwich in five flustered minutes, and it sat like a lump in his stomach as he threw himself back into the roaring current; he educated and reassured and sutured and palpated and reported and _ran—_

And he was sitting in a chair at the nursing station, staring at a chart, and he couldn’t read it; he shook his head and tried again, and the words were a blur.

One of the nurses was looking at him. He looked up, not wanting to meet her eyes, _God, what do you need from me_ now?

“Julian, it’s six o’clock. Have you eaten yet?”

 _What? Six?_ How had that happened?

“Um… no. No, I haven’t.” Suddenly he was completely hollow, stomach twisting. _No wonder I can’t think._

She smiled sympathetically. “You know, there’s some pizza left in the conference room. You can probably snag it if you get there soon.”

“Uh – thanks!”

There _was_ pizza left, hallelujah, and he devoured three slices without tasting them, and sat in a semi-comfortable chair, enjoying the luxury of staring at a wall that did not need his attention in any way.

But now, as his blood glucose rose, his brain started to work again, and here was that quiet, ceaseless murmur in the back of his mind…

_How is he?_

Elim had been alone all day…

_I trust him. I have to trust him._

But he could ask. It had to be okay to ask, right?

He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his scrubs. There were no new texts. A few emails, all spam or stupid forwarded jokes or invites out from friends; he deleted them, frowning, and flipped to his text app.

**garak how r u?**

He waited, foot tapping, and scrolled through his feeds to kill time. More stupid jokes, a review of a video game, the latest from the All-Fed tennis semi-finals…

Again. **garak r u feeling any better?**

More waiting, this time just staring at the screen. One minute. Two.

**garak i will see u tmrw – do u need anything now?**

Nothing, and nothing, and nothing.

_I have to trust him. I have to trust him…_

Tests and more tests, and no thanks at all, God, this was really such a pile of—

 _No. Not fair._ Get anyone sick enough, and they wouldn’t be rational. They _couldn’t_ be. They’d be too sick to think of anything other than themselves. _He is sick, and it is not my fault._

That was one of the first things he’d had to learn. Sometimes, a patient was simply too sick to think straight, and they blamed the person caring for them for their situation. Taking it personally didn’t help anyone. Sometimes you had to put yourself away and just deal with the situation as it was.

Sometimes that worked even if the person in question wasn’t, technically, your patient.

_I can’t fix him. All I can do is bear with him. That will have to be enough._

He sighed, and twiddled his stethoscope absently, and headed back to the ER.


	6. day five

The night passed in a blur of half-sleep, interrupted every two hours or so by a request or a page or a new admission, and he stumbled through it somehow, was able to consult with his resident, was able to answer questions and do what needed doing. At some point, he ate his apple. It was good.

Morning greeted him with a few new ER arrivals, and he blurrily took patient histories and performed examinations, and remembered almost none of it.

There was a Grand Rounds scheduled for 8 AM. His resident looked him up and down, and told him to go wash up, and to head _directly home_ after the presentation. He was too tired to be grateful.

He stood in front of the bathroom mirror with a toothbrush in his hand, and was briefly uncertain how to use it.

He attended Grand Rounds in his rumpled scrubs, mostly for the food, and did his best to pay attention, to squeeze one more rational hour out of his brain. The sandwich helped, reviving him somewhat, and he was actually able to think straight long enough to take some notes, and even to answer a question tossed his way.

But when it was done, it was _done,_ and he was done, oh, he was done…

It was 10:30 AM by the time he was slumped on the bus heading back to the apartments, and he was too tired to think about picking up anything for Elim, too tired to think of anything at all. He leaned his head on the cool glass of the bus window and watched the world roll by.

 _I should get something for lunch later._ He wasn’t going to feel like making even the simplest thing today; he’d learned that from his last couple of call shifts, and there was no point in pretending otherwise. _All I want to do is sleep…_

Dialing up Deep Dish Nine was almost comically difficult, as he stabbed at his phone with fat fingers, but he managed it somehow.

“Deep Dish Nine, this is Kira.”

“Hi, it’s Julian.”

“Hi, Julian. You’re not scheduled to work today.”

Always business first with Kira. “I know. I just wanted to get something to eat – I’ll pick it up in a bit, okay? Just some spaghetti and meatballs, please.”  That would keep well in the fridge, and the carbs would get him going, later; he knew from experience that he’d need it.

“Okay. It’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

“That’s fine, thanks…”

The bus rolled on. He drowsed briefly, head against the window, jerking awake when the bus hit a bump and smacked him against the glass. _Did I miss my stop?_ No, there was the Klingon deli, so there were still two stops left to go. His phone rested in his lap. There were no texts, no missed calls.

One stop, no stops; he reached up and pressed the button, _ding,_ and the bus groaned and wheezed its way to a halt in front of the plaza. He shrugged his tremendously heavy bag up on to his shoulder and trudged his way down the steps, and God he was tired, but this was the last thing he had to do, _just this and then I can sleep…_

His shoes slapped on the asphalt as he walked across the parking lot, the sound echoing slightly off the storefronts of the strip mall. It was soothing, almost, and he lost himself in it as he walked, _slap, slap, slap—_

Oh, here he was at the door, and he pulled it open, and was greeted with the scent of tomatoes and peppers, and underneath it a waft of fresh bread. _I’m a bit hungry. That’s surprising._

He leaned heavily on the counter as Kira bagged his order. As she rang him out, she looked him up and down, and actually smiled a little.

“How’re you doing, Julian?”

“About as well as I look.”

“Crappy, then.”

_Thank you, Kira._

He nodded at her, drily, and hefted the takeout, and turned to go—

“Julian, wait!” Miles pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen, smiling.

 _Miles is here already?_   Something must have broken overnight; Miles usually didn’t make it in ‘til closer to three, and it was barely… _eleven? God, I need to sleep…_

He did his best to muster a smile, some kind of smile, it _felt_ like a smile, but judging by Miles’s face, it wasn’t much of one.

“Good morning, Miles.”

Miles looked him over. “I’d say the same to you, but it looks like you’ve had a hell of a night.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Call shift.”

“Oh. Been on long?”

“Since yesterday at nine.”

Miles blew out air, his expression sympathetic, and Julian nodded, _yeah…_

“Getting any easier for you?”

“Not really.”

“Ah.” And that appeared to be it for idle chit-chat, but Miles was looking around, clearly trying to figure out the best way to say something else. Julian really didn’t have the energy to pull it out of him, right now. _Then again, I don’t really have the energy to leave, either._ He waited, thinking of bed.

“Julian, I…” Now Miles was looking at him, and his face was honest and simple, concern washed over it with broad strokes. It was refreshing, somehow. “I heard about Quark’s… and I saw the sign at Garak’s shop.”

It was a bit incongruous, that little sign in Julian’s scrawled handwriting taped to the door of the elegant shop. Oh, well. Better than nothing. He nodded. “Yeah…”

“Everything all right?” And Miles’s open concern was so easy to read, and it was briefly overwhelming; for a moment, Julian stood there, and the world spun around him.

_I could tell him. He’s my best friend. I could tell him everything._

Miles wouldn’t judge him. He’d help. He’d listen to him, _God_ , someone to _talk to…_

_He won’t judge me… but what will he think of Elim?_

He found himself lying smoothly, seamlessly. “Yeah. It’s just a flare-up of a chronic condition he has. It’s a bit rough on him, really.” He smiled, head tilted, intimating _poor old guy,_ and inside him his stomach twisted, acid and empty.

Miles nodded, slowly. “Oh. He gonna be okay?”

“I expect so. He’ll probably be back at it by next week.” His hand mimicked a snipping pair of scissors, and he grinned, showing teeth.

“Ah.” Miles took that in, and looked Julian over, still frowning. “Do you need anything?”

He knew what Miles meant:  did he, Julian, need anything? Was there something Miles could do?

Part of him wished he could say yes.

_But it’s not just me anymore, is it._

“No, thanks, Miles. We’re fine.”

* * *

Sun streamed through his bedroom window, and for a moment he closed his eyes, stood in the beam, let it hit his face. It would be so easy to let his knees buckle, to fall backwards on to his own bed and sleep, dreamlessly…

_No. He needs me._

He shook his head and opened his eyes, and scooped up the change of clothes he’d come for. All right, now; he had a messenger bag, a bag of food, an armload of clothes, and was that all? Could he be done now, please?

Closing his apartment door behind him felt weirdly like leaving a stranger’s home. _I haven’t been here in days…_

He trudged wearily down the stairs, back underground, and when he found himself at Elim’s door, that didn’t feel like home, either. It felt… more like the hospital, really. _What will I find when I walk through that door?_

God, right now, as long as it included sleep, he didn’t care what he found.

“Hello, it’s me…” He rapped sharply on the door, waited a moment, then unlocked it and let himself in.

The darkness pressed in on him; the lights he’d turned on yesterday to aid his morning ablutions had all been turned off again. The air was still thick and warm against his skin.

“Elim?”

He couldn’t hear anything; there was no soft breathing from a curled figure on the couch, no muffled roar of water from the shower.

He slipped out of his shoes, leaving them by the door, and dropped his messenger bag there too for good measure, _one less thing._ What the hell: his extra clothes joined it in a rumpled pile. His takeout found a temporary home in Elim’s fridge, tucked behind the meal-replacement drinks standing like five little soldiers along the top shelf. He found himself fighting an obscure impulse to salute. _We’re all in this together, men… God, I am so tired._

“Elim? Where are you?”

Still nothing, and now he wasn’t quite sure what to do. If Elim was sleeping, this was _good,_ and he certainly didn’t want to bother him. In fact, the best thing he could do would be to get some sleep himself, to be better able to help out later when Elim needed him. And here was Elim’s couch, and he could just lie down and tug the blanket over himself…

Hmm. The blanket hadn’t been touched since he’d left yesterday morning. He could tell: it was still lying the way he’d folded it, edges slightly uneven.

_Has he really not been out of bed in… a day and a half?_

Well, that was a hell of an assumption. Perhaps Elim just hadn’t felt like sitting on the couch. Maybe he’d just grabbed some food and taken it back to bed. That was reasonable, right?

Something scratched inside his brain, something with little claws…

_I’ll just find him. Then I can sleep._

He moved through the small apartment as quietly as he could, treading softly on the carpet, trying not to bang into anything or make any unnecessary noise. No need to call out again; there was, after all, only one place left to look…

Gently, he opened the bedroom door; as his eyes adjusted to the near-complete darkness within, he saw an outline in the bed. _Oh, thank God._

And what had he been expecting? _Did you think he’d skip town, Julian?_

He closed the door silently, and went to wash his face and brush his teeth before he slept; _oh, sleep_ , his body cried out for it—

There was a post-it note on the bathroom mirror, shakily written in Elim’s elegant hand. _I flushed them._

For a moment he just looked at it, brain not processing. _But I flushed them yesterday… what?_

Resting on the edge of the sink, next to the toothbrushes, was an unfamiliar vial. He picked it up and read the label, his mind churning slowly.

 _Where did he even get this?_ Barbiturates weren’t easy to come by – was this legitimately prescribed, or – it didn’t look like a pharmacy label…

— _five full bottles of meal replacement in the fridge and the vial was empty—_

He was moving before he even realized it, suddenly fully awake and _terrified_ , slamming into the bedroom, grabbing Elim roughly and shaking him, jerking him back and forth as if he weighed nothing, as if he was made of rags, “Wake up, _wake up!”_

God, he hadn’t called, he hadn’t checked in because he’d wanted him to feel _trusted; Elim, please, don’t be—_

But Elim flinched, muscles spasming to life as he was jolted into wakefulness, and he yanked away from Julian, “Julian, _stop it!”_

Relief roared through him, _oh, thank God, he’s alive—_

 _The son of a bitch is_ alive!

 _“What the fuck is this?”_ He flipped on the bedside light and thrust the vial directly into Elim’s face, making him flinch back, making him blink his bleary eyes and look up at Julian, shaken—

“You’re shouting—”

“You’re goddamned _right_ I’m shouting! You didn’t tell me you had these! What did you do with them? Did you take any?”

“No,” and Elim shook his head, eyes narrowed against the light.

“Where are the rest of them? Where’ve you been hiding this? I’ve never seen this bottle before—”

“I flushed them, _Doctor!_ I left you a note!” Now Elim was coming awake, gaze sharpening, still not quite able to deal with the light but glaring anyway; he was frowning, his muscles taut.

“And I’m to believe that, am I? God—” He squeezed the little bottle; its soft plastic buckled in his hand. “So let me guess, you’ve been popping these too, right? A nice little cocktail?”

“What? No!” Anger in Elim’s face, but also a little flare of shock, and part of him wanted that, needed the reaction. “I took those only as I needed them—”

“Ah, so that’s what, one a day? Two? Maybe three?”

“No! Once a week, perhaps—”

“Right.” And he let the word drip disbelief, and Elim’s brows lowered.

“Doctor, what do I have to do to get you to trust me? I am being honest with you!”

Really? _Elim_ felt like the wronged party here? _How dare he—_

“Oh, are you really? Well, it’s a _fine fucking time_ you’ve picked to start!” And he turned, and threw the vial against the wall as hard as he could; it bounced off and landed in the basket of unlaundered bedlinens, _Christ, the_ next _thing I’ve got to do for this son of a_ bitch!

Elim’s eyes were narrow now, his mouth thin; he was shaking, wrapped tightly in the sheets. “And what does that mean?”

“It means—” God, he didn’t have any words; he was gesturing impotently, beyond speech, and his hands clenched into fists. “It means that I’ve been with you for months now and I had no idea about any of this—”

“It was none of your business, Doctor.” Elim’s tone was quiet and sharp, and he wanted to scream.

“None of my business? Your fucking drug habit was none of my _business?_ Did you think… God, you didn’t think I could understand, did you – or else you just couldn’t stop lying, because you never stop _lying_ —”

“I didn’t lie to you about this!”

“No, you just didn’t tell me the truth! Have you _ever_ told me the truth? The plain and simple tailor, God, the longer I spend with you the more I— I just lied to _Miles_ for you—”

“I didn’t ask you to do that—”

“You didn’t have to, Elim, I did it on my _own,_ Christ, what am I doing, I don’t know anything about you, do I, it’s all lies—”

Elim was staring at him, eyes wide and pale, and yet he couldn’t stop himself, rage and fear pouring out of him, “God damn it, do you even want me here? Am I wasting my fucking _time_ being with you? I can’t – what’s the point, if I don’t even know you? What are we _doing—”_

And suddenly he ran down, fury draining away, leaving only a chill within him; here was Elim, looking at him, and he couldn’t find his voice, could only say softly, questioningly, “What am I doing here?”

He closed his eyes, pressed his hands against his face, feeling for solidity, something real—

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…”

He peered between his fingers, wary, not wanting to see Elim’s face.

Elim was smiling. The smile had an edge.

“Poor little doctor-to-be. Look how upset you are. You’d better start learning to shrug this sort of thing off, you know. If you can’t handle me, how are you ever going to handle the truly difficult patients?”

Each word stabbed at him, finding his vulnerabilities so easily, and he flinched.

“Don’t you dare make _fun_ of me, Garak!”

“Oh, I’m not,” and Elim’s tone was lightly, pleasantly amused. “I truly sympathize. How difficult it must be to find out that the man you care for isn’t who he seems to be.”

He was too angry to hear this, he couldn’t handle it; he waved a hand between them as if to brush it away, turned to leave—

“Please, my dear Doctor,” and there was a barb in Elim’s voice now, catching him, tugging him back, “let me alleviate your suffering. I will illuminate my hideous past for you. I will tell you everything you’d like to know, I _promise.”_   A twist of sweetness at the end, there, bitterly saccharine.

He didn’t want to look back at Elim – he wanted to leave – but it was like passing a wreck on the highway; you had to turn, you needed to see…

“Here, my dear,” and Elim patted the bed beside himself, a horrible parody of a loving gesture. “Come and sit by me. I promise, by the end of my story, you’ll know more about me than you ever wanted to.”

His hands worked at his sides. He could feel his mouth twitching.

_I shouldn’t—_

_I_ need _to—_

“I’ll stand.”

Elim’s smile widened for a moment. “As you prefer.” He curled his legs up under himself, movement seen beneath the sheets, and pressed his hands together, fingertips touching lightly as he thought. “I told you that the verkecin was originally given to me to treat pain due to an injury I sustained during my employment with the Cardassian government. I also told you that the verkecin enabled me to continue to function.”

“That… wasn’t true.”

“Oh, the tablets were definitely required so that I could function, Doctor. They were a standard prescription for anyone doing what I did. No physical injury was required to earn them. No, their purpose was simply to make me feel good, because so much of what I did required making other people feel extremely _bad,_ do you follow me, Doctor?” That smile was still on his face; his teeth flashed through, white and sharp.

“And this duty was not easy for me, Doctor, oh, it was a heavy load to bear, because as you know, I am a gentle, cerebral soul.” Now the smile twisted, mocking, and Julian almost winced; he caught it, controlled it, _can’t show weakness,_ it would be blood in the water.

Elim’s eyes narrowed, and he continued, his tone biting. “I was very, very bad at dealing with the fallout from my work. I simply couldn’t stop taking it home with me. Alas, poor me!” He rolled his eyes, suddenly awash with pathos; it slid from his face, leaving behind that smile again, unpredictable, dangerous.

“I was lucky, though, Doctor; I could escape through _medication._ One tablet was usually more than enough to make me quite at peace with my lot. In extreme cases, two. And more were always available, goodness, as many as I wanted – and so I stockpiled them, and what I couldn’t use, I gave to… a friend. He held them for me, and no doubt sold some, and that was fine, as long as he had them when I needed them—”

Something didn’t make sense. “You didn’t keep them with you?”

“Doctor, I didn’t always have the luxury of a stable place to live. I went where I was sent. I travelled very light. But my friend… ah, he could stay in the same place, happy and safe, knowing that one way or another I _would_ find him again. And I always did.” The smile slipped for a moment, changing, as Elim looked at something in his past; it hardened again as he dismissed the thought. “When I left Cardassia, I stayed in touch with him; he was a friend, after all. _Was_ is, perhaps, the operative word. He is now either dead, or has decided that contact with me is an unnecessary liability.” Now a bark of laughter, harsh and unexpected. “Well, he wouldn’t be wrong, would he…”

Too many words, information smothering him like a swathe of thick fabric; he grasped at a thread and pulled. “You kept taking them…?”

Elim’s eyes were sharp. “Clearly.”

“Even though you’re not doing… that job… anymore.”

“Yes.”

“Why? I don’t—I mean, if you’re away from that now, if they can’t make you do… anything, why not try to break their hold on you? Why not—”

And as Julian spoke, Elim’s brows lifted, and his expression lightened almost to laughter. “Excuse me, Doctor. But you are making a rather large assumption.”

“Which is?”

Elim blinked, and spread his hands. “You are assuming that freedom from _them_ means that I am now free of _pain.”_

“But…” He looked at Elim, remembering: _only the self-inflicted kind, I fear_. Which meant… what? “Aren’t you?”

Now it was Elim’s turn to be briefly wordless, and Julian stood there, taut, watching as he trembled, his mouth working; his eyes flashed bright and blue in the light of the reading lamp, and when the words came, they boiled out of him.

“Doctor Bashir, I am, in effect, an exile from Cardassia. I can never go home. I am trapped _here,_ where it is always too cold, where I am surrounded by people who look at me with suspicion or outright hate _._ Some of them know what I am. Those who don’t, suspect. Look around you, and you will see it. You don’t even have to look far – look at your friend Miles _._ Tell me _that’s_ a man who’d welcome me with open arms.”

He spat the words, voice rising, and Julian stared at him. _He never seemed to care—_ But he was alone, Julian had noticed it before, and yet Elim had never _seemed_ to care—

“And I am useless here, Doctor. To think of it,” and suddenly he was darkly amused, “a man of my skills, sentenced to spend the rest of his life making clothing in a corner shop in a _strip mall—”_

But he was – his clothes – _Julian’s_ clothes – everywhere in Elim’s home there was fabric and embroidery – more lies, God _damn_ it— “You don’t like it?”

Now Elim was straight-backed and snarling, “ _I hate it!_ And the only thing that gives me any pleasure in this us’cut wasteland is my time with _you!_ ” He glared at Julian and Julian wanted to recoil, God, the fury in that glare—

“I am reduced to quietly hoping to see you, to talk about books, or watch films with you on the floor of your apartment – it is _humiliating—”_

 _But you chased me!_ He couldn’t process this – this had all been Elim, from the start, it had been Elim—

“I thought you liked spending time with me!”

Elim’s hands twisted in the sheets, tugging the fabric to near-tearing, and his arms trembled. “Oh, I do! And that’s the worst part! There is nothing better in my life than _this!_ Because of you, I am trapped here – I can’t even end this, because it would hurt _you_ – I hate this place, I hate my life, and since you want me to be _honest,_ my _darling,_ I hate _you!”_

His voice raged, brokenly. His eyes were the eyes of a trapped animal.

Julian stared at him, frozen in the moment, words moving sharply through him, none finding his lips.

Elim sagged, verbally spent, his hands shaking on the blanket, a muscle jumping in his face, but his eyes were still furious, still glaring.

_I – how can I—_

The words slipped softly from Julian’s lips without his quite knowing how they’d gotten there. “There is a post-it note in my biology reference text that says otherwise.”

Cold, he was cold, and he watched the anger drain from Elim’s face, his pale skin somehow paling even further, and he had no feelings about it whatsoever, no words, his mind was a jumble, and this was a jigsaw, and none of the pieces matched, and he couldn’t do this anymore, not now…

“I don’t…” And he was suddenly so tired, as his adrenaline, finally spent, throbbed away. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore right now. I am going to sleep.”

Elim looked at him, but there was just nothing left inside him for Elim, there was almost nothing left for himself; he turned, stumbling from the room, tugging the door shut behind him, trudging in darkness, somehow finding the couch, wrapping the blanket around himself, asleep almost before his head hit the cushions.

* * *

He slipped into awareness slowly, sliding from darkness to darkness; only gradually did he become aware that he was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

_How long was I sleeping?_

It was so hard to tell in a basement apartment; you never saw the sun…

He pushed himself up into a sit. The blanket had somehow tangled itself around his arms and legs, and he tugged free of it, stood, stretched hugely, arms reaching for the walls.

_God, I stink._

His scrubs, once so green and fresh, were now rather wilted. He peeled them off and tossed them over by the door, along with socks and underwear; he could scoop them up when he took the bedsheets and pyjamas to the laundry room.

His bladder wanted his attention, and also he really very much wanted to brush his teeth, and for a moment he closed his eyes and swayed, orienting himself in darkness: _bathroom is this way._

As he padded naked through the apartment, he caught a glimpse of the microwave clock through the kitchen door. Seven PM. He’d been sleeping for about seven and a half hours. _Felt more like a minute._

First things first: bladder. When he turned to wash his hands, he saw Elim’s note on the bathroom mirror. Well, that had to go; he tore it down, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the garbage. _One more problem solved._

He washed his hands and brushed his teeth, and now he wanted to shower more than anything.

Stretching in the tub, he let the water hit him, dialing it hotter, hotter, wanting it to scald him, to sterilize his skin, _ahh…_

Now he needed soap, and since he was at Elim’s, there was a selection to choose from, an array of simple pleasures. Today, the pink bar looked appealing. He held it close to his nose, inhaling its sweetness. _What is that?_ Cardamom, mmm, and a hint of something else…

A year ago, he hadn’t even known what cardamom was.

_Oh—_

And suddenly he was crying, he was fucking crying in the shower like a _kid,_ sobs ripping from him as all the deferred emotion of the last day downloaded into him at once; he squeezed the stupid fucking bar of soap in his hand and leaned up against the cold tiled wall and let the sounds scrape out of him, wordless and painful, trying so hard to be quiet…

Later, eyes red and puffy, he dried himself off with one of Elim’s towels, soft and plush against his skin. He flipped the lights on in the living room, and his extra clothes were still where he’d left them, draped across his messenger bag, almost as rumpled as his scrubs had been. Didn’t matter; on they went. His jeans were soft and comfortable, tight against his skin, and he sighed as he tugged them on; it was such a small comfort, but… _God, right now, I need every small comfort I can get._

He snuck quietly into Elim’s room to get the dirty bedsheets, creeping soundlessly across the floor. As far as he could tell, Elim was sleeping. Either that, or he didn’t want to talk to Julian, and so he was faking being asleep. Either way was good. On the way out of the room, he made a long-armed snag, grabbing some quarters from the little bowl on the dresser, balancing the laundry carefully as he did.

The empty vial still rested lightly atop the soiled bedlinens, and he plucked it gently from its nest, looked at it for a moment, and threw it into the kitchen garbage as hard as he could. It hit with an echoing _clang._

All right, then: dirty towels, check; bedsheets, check; pyjamas, check; his own scrubs, picked up between finger and thumb, check; he bundled them all into the laundry basket and toted them over to the laundry room. Into the machine they went. He added soap, slotted in the quarters, and the laundry danced round and round, twisting on itself in the cool water. It was pretty, actually; he found himself watching, eyes following the laundry through its gyrations, and he sat on the laundry room floor, leaning back against the concrete wall, drifting…

His stomach growled.

_Oh. Right._

He pushed himself up, slowly, and headed back down the hall to Elim’s apartment, the tiled floor a bit cold on his bare feet.

His food was where he’d left it, behind the… hmm, the now four bottles of meal replacement. And one of those was half-finished. So that was something.

He microwaved his supper and sat on the floor to eat it, too tired to deal with the formality of setting a table or even dealing with a chair. It was comfortable there, linoleum under him, cupboards behind him, warm air drifting by, light filtering in from the living room; he ate, slowly, and the food was probably very good. He couldn’t tell.

His brain moved sluggishly, crawling from thought to thought.

 _What_ am _I doing here?_

_Am I helping? Am I hurting?_

_Does it even matter?_

He rubbed his face, and found that it felt good to hide in his hands, eyes covered, and so he sat there for a while, face buried, arms braced against his knees, folded up and quiet.

Elim’s bedroom door was still shut; he’d heard no movement, no sound at all. Perhaps he really was sleeping.

Right now, he didn’t particularly want to check.


	7. day six

Thursday morning came and found him curled up on Elim’s couch, legs tucked to his chest, blinking at the blackness.

_I am getting very, very tired of waking up in the dark._

He’d managed to force himself to grab a few more hours of sleep with the aid of a tablet of dimenhydrinate, taken at midnight, after he’d spent an hour staring up at the unseen ceiling. Dimenhydrinate always left him a bit fuzzy the next day, as if his head was full of cotton wool; oh, well, it would pass, and sleep was important. Take care of yourself first: that was what they told the students when third year started. If you didn’t take care of yourself, how could you take care of anybody else?

He just had to do this one thing first, and then he could take care of himself. He didn’t want to do it, and that didn’t have anything to do with anything, did it; some things you just did.

Yesterday’s clothes were still fine, barely worn and good enough for now; he slipped back into them, zipping and buttoning his jeans as he walked to the kitchen. The remnants of last night’s meal sat on the counter: an empty, slightly stained cardboard takeout container; a metal fork. Quick meals, eaten alone – nice and simple. He liked simple. There was just too much going on in his life for complex.

There was one more bottle of meal replacement missing from the fridge, and two bottles of electrolyte drink had vanished too. He grabbed one more of each, setting them on the counter, and then restocked the fridge from the little bag sitting next to it. _Running low. How many days has it been…?_ It was Thursday, wasn’t it? _I’m not even sure…_

The bottles were cool in his hands, condensation chilling his fingers as he bumped Elim’s bedroom door open. His eyes were getting rather used to the darkness, now; it was easy to see Elim’s curled shape in the bed, and the whites of his eyes, glinting at him.

“Here.” He put the bottles down by the bed.

“Thank you.” Elim’s voice was quiet.

He turned and left, closing the door behind him, and there, it was done; now he could take care of himself.

In the bathroom, he took care of the necessary details: relieve self, brush teeth, wash self, style hair, shave. It was all quite mechanical and unthinking, and he managed almost completely to avoid meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

Back to the kitchen, now, and he tossed the take-out container from last night in the garbage. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, and a cup of extremely good coffee. So good, in fact, that he treated himself to a second. With extra cane sugar.

He drank it slowly, savouring each sip, letting it warm him.

After that, he did the washing-up, and tucked everything away, neat and clean and dry. While he was at it, he tidied the kitchen, straightened up the living room and the bathroom; when he was done, it looked rather as if he hadn’t been there at all.

Now, to grab the necessaries for his shift. He pulled yesterday’s scrubs out of the basket of freshly washed laundry – _oh, shit._

Washed, yes. Folded, no. The scrubs were wrinkled beyond what even he could accept as wearable. Oh, well, never mind – he could just run up to his apartment and get another set. That would mean he’d need to leave a bit early if he wanted to have any hope of making the bus, though.

_No time like the present._

He knocked on Elim’s bedroom door, lightly, and opened it just a crack, just enough to speak through. “I’m leaving now. Text me if you need anything.”

And unexpectedly, Elim’s voice from within, slightly raised and intense, “Julian—”

He pressed his lips together, and said nothing.

Another attempt, not quite certain. “May I—”

“No.” He closed the door.

And that was that, wasn’t it.

His shoes waited by the door, and he slipped his arm through his messenger bag strap and lifted—

_Ouch._

That damned book made his bag so heavy; he took it out, patting its cover absently, and laid it carefully on the couch.

Lighter now, he threw on his coat and left the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him, and he was so light, he was free, he was _out._

* * *

Julian’s Thursday had passed in a quiet blur. He’d more or less sleepwalked through it, really. He’d functioned competently at the hospital. His care notes had been concise and clear, and his resident had commented on it, and he’d smiled, appreciating the praise. He’d eaten lunch with the other students, and laughed, and caught up on the gossip, and when they’d asked him about his boyfriend, he’d smiled and lied. It had been easy.

He’d listened to music on the bus ride home, fingers tapping out the beat on his thigh, a quietly repeating pattern, stable and circling.

He’d moved quickly through the lobby of the apartment building, not looking at the stairs heading down; his focus had been upward, towards the sunlight casting fading beams through the narrow stairwell windows, _home, home, I want to go home…_

But now he was here, sitting on his couch, looking around him, and this didn’t feel right.

Nothing felt right.

_What am I looking for?_

Well, his place was a mess. Tidying would very likely help. He couldn’t be comfortable with detritus all around him, could he? _So let’s just get that fixed up, then._

Cleaning was always easier with music; he threw on something mindless and danced his way through his chores, sweeping the kitchen, making his bed, tidying binders and pens and books, gathering up old plates and cups, singing as he washed his dishes, thumping a foot against the kitchen cupboards at that one really good part with the drum—

And now his apartment was clean, and he looked around it, and there was nothing to do.

_What did I do by myself, once upon a time?_

There was reading. He didn’t really feel much like reading a book.

He could call up a friend, maybe see what Miles was doing – play a game or watch a movie – the idea appealed, briefly…

_But I don’t really think I want to talk to anyone right now._

Well, maybe eating would help. It usually did. He cracked the fridge, half-wary of what might lurk inside, and was pleasantly surprised to find no mysterious vintage takeout or moldy apples. There wasn’t really much of anything in there, actually: half a loaf of bread, tucked away, and a carton of milk not quite at its expiry date, and some pop, and some jam. He had a bit more success with the freezer. Apparently at some point he’d stocked up on frozen dinners, back before freshly cooked meals had become a daily feature—

— _don’t think about it—_

—and so he microwaved one, and found to his surprise that yes, apparently this was considered food, even if it tasted more like plastic. He washed it down with a can of Coke, because caffeine was always his friend.

And now what? Well, he hadn’t revised, really reviewed things, in a few days. Too busy, really, too much going on. That wasn’t a good habit to fall into, was it. Time to do something about that.

He spent a couple of hours curled up on his own couch, horrible and lumpy and familiar, sipping now and then from another can of Coke, reviewing what he knew, relearning what was trickier. He spent a little while going over suturing techniques, and did some quick mnemonic drill to freshen up his antibiotics, and before he knew it, it was almost ten, and sleep was starting to sound rather appealing.

His phone, tossed on his bed, was quiet, and that was fine, too; nobody was bothering him, and so he could relax a little. Life was always easier when he didn’t have to put on a face, didn’t have to figure out who to be from moment to moment; right now it was just him, comfortable in his place, stomach full, music playing, and it was nice, it honestly was.

It really, really was—

_I’m allowed. I am. I’ve done my bit._

He picked up his phone, tapped out a text:

**im staying at my place tonight, txt me if need me**

And oh, he could breathe, and he closed his eyes, safe.


	8. day seven

He lay in the dark, head on his pillow, and stared at his hands, held up before him. _How perfectly pathetic I am._

Well, if one was going to do penance, one really should do it properly _._ No one could accuse him of permitting himself any luxuries, could they? If he was going to suffer, he was going to do it right, wasn’t he, because he was Elim Garak, and heaven forfend he not do something _perfectly._

_You told him you hate him, Elim._

At the time, it had been true; he’d been so furious – Julian hadn’t understood, he’d thought Julian would have some idea, some concept of what he was going through, and he’d really had no idea at all – he’d wanted to hit him, he’d hated him…

_And you still do, don’t you._

In a way, yes: the hatred of someone weak, looking at someone stronger and resenting them.

_Ah, so you resent him, is that it? Why?_

Because he needed Julian. He needed him so much, beyond reason, and he didn’t want it, hadn’t asked for it. _I have always been alone. I do_ best _alone. I don’t need him to swoop in, to_ fix _me!_

Even when he was so near to destroying himself?

If there was no Julian…

He thought back to that bottle of sleeping pills, held its image in his mind’s eye, saw a figure, cold on the bathroom floor, crumpled and ugly in death—

 _So this is what you need him for? To keep you alive? Not fair, Elim. Can’t you even manage_ that _on your own?_

Withdrawal was eating at him, he knew it, he wasn’t thinking rationally; still, he was disgusted with himself, with his weakness, and his mouth twisted.

But there was so much more to this need – it wasn’t weakness, not really – if it was, then it was weak to need water, or air. _How can it be weak to need something one cannot live without?_

 _Ah, so you’ve finally realized, have you? You need him for_ everything. _And so, of course, you’re doing your best to drive him away. And once you’ve done that—_

_Then I will indeed have my richly-earned reward._

He sighed. This was, after all, more or less how he’d expected things to play out, one way or another. Really, some little part of him was quite pleased; it could see a resolution, and was now almost at peace.

Life would be much simpler, soon. He did prefer simple.

Simple, and predictable, and _stifling—_

_You’ve done it to yourself again, Elim, all of it, all over again; why do you seem to think that your supply will never be cut off?_

_I used to be so clever. I always thought ahead…_

He lay there and looked at his hands, the architects of his possible destruction. His laptop glowed next to him, its fan whirring softly. Interestingly, for the first time in days, his legs weren’t cramping. He could lie still, and so he did, unmoving, barely breathing, _oh,_ he was so tired, so very, very tired…

After he’d lashed out at Julian, had selected with care the most poisonous darts in his arsenal and hurled them with precision; after Julian had staggered from the room, the venom working in his veins; after this, he’d curled up on himself, eyes flicking back and forth, waiting for something else to happen…

But nothing had. There’d been silence from the living room, broken only by the soft sounds of a body shifting position, moving in sleep.

Eventually he’d slept too, fitfully, dreams blending with reality such that he kept waking on the verge of a shout – but there was still no noise, there was nothing.

Thirsty, he’d painfully lifted himself from the bed he was so very much coming to hate and made his way to the kitchen, each step through the living room taken with incredible care. He needn’t have worried; Julian’s soft, slow breaths had been steady and regular, his sleep deep, and both the trip to and the trip from the kitchen had been managed without Julian stirring at all.

Part of Garak had wanted to kneel next to him, to look at him, to whisper an apology.

 _Only when he’s not listening? How very appropriate. You wouldn’t want to say something to him that he might actually_ hear, _after all._

And indeed, when he’d later heard Julian moving through the apartment, and even when Julian had actually come into the room to collect his own dirty bedsheets, he’d lain still, feigning sleep. _Coward, coward, coward…_

Perhaps karmically, sleep had eluded him after that, and he’d found himself awake, thinking. Not thinking _about_ anything, not productive in any way, just thinking and thinking, chasing himself in circles, teetering on the verge of an act that had not yet found completion.

The next morning had come as a thin shaft of light through the tiny window near the ceiling, and he’d watched it move slowly from the ceiling, down the wall. Julian had brought him food at about a third of the way down. He hadn’t looked at Garak. He’d just put it down on the ground and left, nothing to say, and Garak had found it weirdly touching: here this hung between them, paralyzing them, taking away the words that were the one thing they’d always had in common… and yet here was food.

A little later, there’d been a goodbye, and Garak had heard the flatness of it, the quiet, almost surgical severing of ties. He’d wanted to say something, then. He’d tried.

But Julian had refused to hear. _Which is most certainly his right._

And then he’d heard the door close. And after that it had been a different kind of day, hadn’t it, talking to himself, trying to stay calm, and then he’d found the book on the couch, and then that text had arrived, flat and final—

That night had been the longest yet. No sleep, never any _sleep_ , just anger and self-recrimination and resentment and justification all at war in his head, with no distractions available or even possible, he couldn’t read, he couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sew, he couldn’t _leave_.

And it ate at him, this feeling that he was being unfair _,_ was somehow doing something _wrong._

How could it be wrong to let Julian go? He deserved so much better than _this._

But it ate at him anyway, it clawed at him and hissed in his ear, _you owe him, Elim, you owe him more than this, for all he is, for all he has done for you, you_ owe him.

And some little traitorous part of him had whispered, _and besides, he might still come back if you give him a reason to…_

Would that be wise?

_Of course it wouldn’t. None of this has been. Honestly, Elim, love notes in Cardassian? What kind of game did you think you were playing?_

He’d told himself all along that he could back out, that he could end this, that he’d started it, and that he would finish it.

And now he couldn’t. He _couldn’t._

_One more chance, give me one more chance, give me—_

He’d found himself mentally composing a letter, something he could send so that he could speak without speaking, something that would explain how everything that made him what he was had come to pass. Eventually mentally hadn’t been good enough, he’d had to commit to _something_ , and he’d peered at his laptop screen, squinting at its brightness in the murky dark of his bedroom, foolish mind spewing words out, traitorous hands putting them down.

And now, here it was, after hours of work: an apology, woven into a tale from his past, presented as bluntly as he knew how. Most of it was even true.

_Elim Garak, this could hang you!_

_Or it could save me_ —

He sent it, and lay back, and stared at his hands.

* * *

_Mmmm, warm…_

Sun crept across his skin, and he smiled, and pushed his face further into the pillow to buy five more minutes. _It can’t be time to get up yet…_

But the explosion of horrible crowing from his bedside table put paid to that idea. Oh, well. At least he’d slept. _God, did I sleep._ He couldn’t remember a single dream.

Waking up to sun felt… amazing, incredible, luxurious. Had he really used to do this every single day?

How long had it been now? Only six days? _Feels like a lifetime._

He scratched himself lazily and stretched, arms and legs pushing to the corners of the bed; _oh,_ that felt good, to take up exactly as much space as he needed. His skin tingled, and he smiled.

It was nice to wake up in a bright clean room, too. _I should tidy up more often._ All his binders stood neatly on their shelves, and perched on the top shelf, his little jar of pens brimmed happily. His clothes were all tucked snugly into their drawers, and the drawers were all closed properly, no socks or trouser legs hanging half-out. Outside, he heard traffic humming by, the wheezing _kssssh_ of the air brakes of an early-morning bus, and oh, it was all familiar and it was all his, just his…

It was amazing what a difference a good sleep could make. _I feel like me again._

Which meant, perhaps, that he could think straight again…

And so he breathed out, tentatively, and closed his eyes, and poked at the sore place inside him—

He hissed between his teeth. _Not quite ready for that yet._ Tuck it away for now; there was breakfast, and the hospital was waiting, and he could be really useful there, they _needed_ him there.

Showering was simple. There was no fancy shower curtain to contend with, no little line-up of pretty soaps waiting beneath his hovering hand; only a jug of clear liquid soap, liberally applied with a washcloth, and his semi-ratty towel to dry off with. It scratched against his skin, and he winced a little and frowned at it. _I’m going to have to buy a new one._

The same apparently went for his razor, which seemed as if it didn’t want to stop with his stubble, and had instead decided to peel off the top layer of his skin, right down to the dermis.

 _All right. New towel, new razor._ That would be something to look forward to. A treat.

_I could use a treat._

He brushed his teeth and smiled at himself in the mirror. It looked like a smile. That was good. Smiles deflected questions.

_Who taught you that, Julian?_

He sighed. _Is everything going to hurt, now? Can I just opt out of that?_

Feelings weren’t optional. He’d often wished they were, but you just couldn’t stop feeling, even when it would really be best for all concerned. _Stupid design. There should be an off-switch._

All right, now he needed clothes, and then breakfast; he wandered back into his bedroom, enjoying sun on his skin, and there was a pop-up on his phone.

_Oh…_

Horrible thought, but – _do I have to look?_

He picked the phone up as if it might bite him, holding it at arm’s length and squinting at it.

There was an email from Elim.

_Oh, God, I’m not ready for this, not even close to ready for this, I need more time—_

But that didn’t seem to be a luxury granted to him these days, did it, not in this, not in anything…

The email was PGP-encrypted. That was something that had always made him chuckle: the way Elim encrypted absolutely everything, from date plans to mildly salacious love-notes. _I don’t think this will be either._

He closed his eyes, and breathed—

_—in, one two three four, out—_

—and opened the email.

* * *

_TO:_ [bashir007@starfleet.med.edu](mailto:bashir007@starfleet.med.edu)

_FROM:_ [egarak@genericmail.com](mailto:egarak@genericmail.com) _( **E. Garak** )_

_SUBJECT:  Apology_

_Julian –_

_I ask that you read this email in private._

_I apologize for the way I have behaved this week. It is inexcusable._

_You seem so able to forgive most things that I fear I have abused your tolerance, and have pushed it far beyond any reasonable limits. I am sorry._

_You have done your best to save me from myself. I have done my best to fight you at every turn._

_There are reasons for this. I have told you some. I will tell you another. You should know who you are trying to save._

_The tablets we have discussed were not given to all agents to keep them functional. My employers are far too clever to dull the senses of their most sensitive employees._

_The first time I obtained these tablets, I stole them._

_I took the bottle from the bedside table of a man I’d been sent to kill. He certainly wouldn’t need them anymore. I knew the name on the vial, and so I knew they had given him happiness, and perhaps relief from pain. Why not me?_

_And I was very unhappy, and I was in pain._

_It truly was a miracle. I still remember. I chewed one tablet, and swallowed it, and waited, and about twenty minutes later all of my problems went away. I didn’t hurt, for the first time in as long as I could recall._

_It felt like a blessing. I needed it. One bottle would not last long._

_I had some pull with my employers. I was quite the golden child, to be honest. I was given the trickiest assignments, because my employers knew that no matter what the task, I would accomplish it. Whether they needed information or silence, one way or another, I would get the job done._

_And so one day, the golden child, who had never asked for anything, went to the head of his department and asked for one little favour._

_It was surprisingly easy. Before the day was out I had an appointment with a sympathetic physician, who specialized in chronic pain._

_Chronic pain indeed. I still find that rather funny. Is that wrong of me?_

_I suddenly had all the tablets I wanted. I could have drowned in them. But I was smart. I set out a limited amount for each day, and what I had left over I gave to my friend. A tidy arrangement, and mutually beneficial._

_I thought I was smart. I was stupid._

_I thought I was in control of the situation. I thought I could use the tablets judiciously, to help me deal with what my life had become. But I found I was taking more and more, setting fewer and fewer aside._

_I am still not sure whether I became tolerant to the tablets, or whether my situation had honestly become that much worse. When one is already in hell, the exact temperature of the flames is irrelevant. A few degrees hotter will make no real difference._

_I was even more stupid than I thought, because I believed my situation was as bad as it could possibly get._

_Then I had to leave. Against the wishes of my employers, I am sorry to say. One does not walk away from a job with the Cardassian government, at least not with the branch I served. And so my existence became rather precarious, and rather complicated._

_Eventually I found myself here. It is always cold here, Julian. And I am alone._

_I waited for them to come for me. For a year or more, I waited, and was certain that every day would be my last, and I was vigilant, unceasingly vigilant. I did nothing but plan: how would I escape? If I could not escape, how would I make sure that they regretted coming for me at all?_

_I became rather frustrated when they didn’t come, actually. All my plans for naught._

_And when they didn’t come, I knew that I could not stay alert forever. Eventually, my control would begin to slip. I had to find something to do to occupy my time, and if my life was now going to consist only of waiting to die, a tailor’s shop seemed as good a place to wait as any._

_With every day that passed, my little stockpile shrank further, and I eventually had to reach out to my friend. I didn’t know if he was still loyal. Every time a package arrived, I wondered if the tablets in the vial would hold release, or… release, I suppose. Would it not be simple to drug a drug, after all? Even if the addict suspects something is wrong, he will still take it._

_But it seems I was never important enough to kill. And now that avenue, at least, has been closed to them._

_I wonder if they even considered it._

_I missed you last night. I missed the sound of you on the couch. I missed your warmth in my bed._

_I did not know you had translated the notes I gave you. Have you been able to translate all of them? If you would like help, I would be pleased to assist._

_I told you I hated you. At the time, it was true. I am sorry for both the statement and the emotion._

_But I also love you, Julian, more than I can ever explain via this or any other medium, including speech._

_I would appreciate, however, your granting me the opportunity to try._

_Your health,_

_Elim_

* * *

He sat on his bed, naked, staring at his phone.

He had to go if he wanted to make the bus.

Elim had sent him this encrypted, yes, but he had to know that Julian could now do whatever he liked with it. He could post it online. He could tell everyone he knew. He could call the police, God only knew what they’d make of it, but he could do it.

He really did need to go.

Elim was a killer. He’d half-wondered, sometimes, watching him move, listening to his stories, the hints between phrases, hidden in breath – half-wondered, and then dismissed it out of hand as an over-active imagination. _But I was right._

Did he even have any clean scrubs?

Elim had stolen the first vial of verkecin, and had hooked _himself_ , cleanly, and had made his employer his dealer. He’d needed solace, certainly, fine, but what impulse could make a man seal his own fate that way?

He was moving now, phone still in hand; he didn’t want to put it down, but he had to go. He found one last pair of clean underwear in his dresser, one last set of clean scrubs, tugged them both on.

Elim had left Cardassia, _why?_ He’d never said, he’d only hinted, something about no longer being wanted – had he upset someone? Had he bungled something huge? Had he been exposed? Was that why he was now so allergic to revealing any secrets at all?

Socks, did he have socks? Yes. Mismatched. But both black. Good enough, on they went.

Something big enough that he’d thought they might come after him here. Here, in the Federation; God, Julian could barely imagine it. Cardassian agents, operating here? _Of course they are._

His hair was a mess. One-handed, he ran gel through it, tried to scrunch some shape into the curls, gave it up for lost.

A killer, employed by… whom? The government? It sounded like it… So not a killer. An assassin. Perhaps… a spy?

Food. What about food? The only edible things in his fridge were milk and bread – this did not a lunch make – and there was nowhere to keep a frozen meal at the hospital; by the time lunch came, it would be a melted mess on the floor of his locker. He’d have to buy something. Damn. This was an expensive week.

A spy assassin. A spy assassin addict. A spy assassin addict _tailor._

He stopped, and leaned against the door of the fridge, phone clutched in his shaking fist—

_He says he loves me. It’s right there. It’s in Standard. He loves me._

_Do I love him?_

_I did a week ago. God, a week ago I was trying to work up to telling him, I had a stupid little plan—_

Did any of it mean anything now?

He rubbed his forearm against his eyes, dashing away the trace of moisture gathering there. His skin carried no fragrance of cardamom, no breath of spice.

_I never asked for this, I never—_

A beep from his phone, and he looked, and his custom alarm had triggered its message, BUS JULIAN GO NOW!, and he grabbed his messenger bag and ran—

* * *

_There. You’ve sent it. You’ve thrown away any hope of safety you had here. Are you happy yet?_

_No, no, I am_ not _happy, I am_ miserable…

Pathetic, he was _pathetic,_ torn between two possibilities and unable to commit to either, he was laughable!

But there was no sense sitting here waiting for an answer, no matter how much he wanted to, little _mercies_ , how ridiculous and childish _._ There wasn’t going to _be_ an answer. He needed to get used to that. He needed to make that his default assumption. Then if something did come, well, that would be a blessing, and if not, that would be expected, and not at all something that twisted within him, that made him want to grit his teeth and _howl—_

_Stop it, Elim!_

He panted and blinked, knees drawn to his chest.

_You wanted to drive him away, didn’t you? So he’d stop seeing you like this._

That was what he’d wanted, although he really hadn’t thought it out at all, it had just been instinctive – that need to hide, to make him _stop looking at me—_

_Well, congratulations, Elim. It worked._

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and groaned, quietly.

_Now it’s just you and me, Elim. At least we have a lot of practice at being alone together. First things first: get up._

But it hurt to move—

 _Get up_. _Wash yourself, for mercy’s sake. Put on clean clothes. You are disgusting._

He couldn’t—

 _Yes, you can, and you will,_ _because if this is all you have left, you are by the Union going to face it with_ dignity.

The bedside lamp glared as he crawled out of bed and stood on unsteady feet, shaky from days of disuse.

It would be easier if he propped himself up on something – perhaps if he leaned on the wall…

_No. Stand on your own feet. Stop leaning on things._

And who was that figure, half-seen in the mirror over the dresser? Could it really be—

_Why, yes, Elim, that’s you. Take a good, long look._

There were dark circles under his eyes, making them look set in and sunken. His hair was oily and matted, hanging in dirty clumps, and he was pale, pale, pale, like some kind of cave creature, all horrible white eyes and scales, never meant to be seen in the light of day…

_Oh, by every mercy, stop being so dramatic and get yourself into the shower._

He hadn’t really noticed how tidy the bathroom was, yesterday; too wrapped up in himself, too busy waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. Now, with eyes that could see the present, he saw how everything was just so, just as he liked it. There were clean towels on the towel rack, hung a touch unevenly. Everything had been resupplied: toilet paper, Kleenex; he wanted for nothing.

_Julian. Everywhere I look, it’s Julian._

_Well, that will stop soon. Now wash yourself._

The shower was hot, almost scalding. He hadn’t been in the shower since… since Julian had drawn him that bath, which had been when… Monday? _Really?_ Oh, he was revolting—

But now he washed himself down, flushed away the debris of several days of shaking and sweat and self-loathing; he let the water run down his face, into his eyes and mouth, and it was, it was…

_It feels good. It actually feels good._

It was a blunted, distant kind of good, but it was good, and for the first time in days, he stretched his limbs up and out, uncurling himself, moving almost without pain.

Now he needed soap, but when he selected his favourite soap from the dish, its fragrance overwhelmed him, and he turned his face away. _Did I really use this?_ Mercies, he must have stunk – it was too strong, nauseatingly strong, and he dropped it back into the dish in disgust. But water alone wouldn’t be enough, he needed to scrub himself clean – _what can I use…_

His shampoo was mild, its fragrance light; good enough, and so he sluiced it over himself in great dollops, using far too much, and scratched at his skin as he rubbed, barely restraining himself from digging in with his irritatingly long nails, and _oh,_ that felt good too, to wash it all away…

Now for his hair, thick and greasy: he tugged at it, working through shampoo, then conditioner, and it was surprisingly hard work. It hurt to lift his arms, to keep them up over his head. That pulled a smile from him, sour and small, amused by his own weakness.

_Smiling already? Well done, Elim. How well you acclimate!_

The smile twisted to a snarl, and he stuck his head directly under the water, letting it pound at his face, at his skin; it was hard to breathe, but he stayed there anyway, opening his mouth, letting the water pour down over him and rinse him clean—

_Oh, I could stay in here forever…_

_Then that means it’s time to get out, Elim._

He cut the water off sharply, stopping the pleasure at its source, and the cool air of the bathroom seemed to swirl in around him; he wanted to curl in on himself, to shiver, and he realized that for the first time in days, it was his choice. _I could shiver. Or I could… not._

The second option sounded… rather good, to be honest, and so he ran his hands back through his hair, pressing out the water, and stepped out of the shower, and wrapped one of his ridiculously fluffy towels around himself. This, too, actually felt good, _too_ good, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. There was only so much trauma one could inflict with a plush coral bath towel.

The view in the bathroom mirror wasn’t nearly as horrifying as he’d expected. The pathetic cave creature had been somewhat subsumed; now he was clean, his hair slicked back, a touch of pink in his cheeks from the heat of the shower, and he almost recognized the face before him.

There was stubble on his cheeks and chin. That was very nearly funny. His facial hair grew in rather sparsely; it took concerted effort for him to have stubble. _Wouldn’t Julian laugh!_

A stab, and his eyes closed—

_Self-indulgent, Elim, and rather weak. Can’t you stop for even one second?_

Shaving required rather a lot of steps, but perhaps breaking it down would help. First, swirl the brush in the cream; second, paint the face; third, run the razor along, and he winced slightly at the aroma assaulting his nose. _Does everything I use have a scent?_ It was unbearable, really, and rather obvious. _Simple pleasures, indeed._

One last task, now; brushing his teeth was unpleasant, and his gums hurt, but he felt undeniably more human when he rinsed and spat. He looked at himself in the mirror again, and saw someone he knew. Not necessarily someone he wanted to know, but at least this was a start.

_Well, Elim. Perhaps you can do this after all._

Everything in his closet was too complicated to deal with, but he managed to unearth a simple tunic, a pair of loose pants. They hung on him, and that was droll; after all his rationing of treats, his mindful little walks, all he’d had to do to lose a few kilos was to cut himself off from his only source of pleasure and flirt with suicidality. _How simple. I should have tried that first._

He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a man in ill-fitting clothes, the kind of outfit he would normally describe, with mild scorn, as “comfortable.”

Well, it _was_ comfortable, wasn’t it. And for now, it would do. It was rather amusing, though, to see this worn-down creature that bore only a slight resemblance to the perfectly composed man who’d looked back at him only… a week ago, now. _The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis as a caterpillar. How funny._

Now, back to the bathroom again to brush his hair and run gel through it, and strangely, that simple act of preparing himself to be seen by eyes other than his own struck some kind of chord, deep and resonant; it was more than just becoming himself again, it was…

Ah, yes, he remembered.

_I am not becoming myself. I am making myself into what I need to be._

Another face, another person, and the Elim Garak inside was submerged, tucked away so that he couldn’t interfere.

Deep down inside himself, something was weeping, _not this again, never again—_

And he nodded at the face in the mirror, and smiled.

* * *

The email sat in his inbox all day long.

Every time he used his phone to look up a drug or to make a calculation, he thought about looking at it again.

Every time he had two minutes to himself between questions or errands, he flicked over to his email app and stared at the subject line.

His phone felt like some kind of totem, sitting there in the pocket of his scrubs, heavy and present, and he kept running his fingers over it absently as he walked, touching it through the green cotton, grounding himself on it.

Was any of it true?

_It feels true…_

But it had all felt true, hadn’t it.

_How much of it did he build out of nothing?_

_How did I get so twisted into this without realizing it?_

_How much of what he tells me is what he knows I want to hear?_

That was a humiliating, horrible thought; he felt naked.

And yet… that email was naked, too.

_I should be angrier._

At Elim, or at himself? He wasn’t sure, but there should be some anger in him, shouldn’t there?

But there was nothing in him, just… quiet.

_Maybe I’m too tired to feel much of anything._

At lunch, he sat by himself in the cafeteria, phone on the table beside his hand, its screen blank. He ate something that he didn’t taste, and he stared at the phone’s dark screen, and his mind was a quiet pool, rippling.

Voices filtered through his stillness, heard and barely understood—

“—so then the guy starts screaming at me to _just give him something_ , and—”

“—security to kick him out, and really, what a loser, I mean, who does that to themselves—”

“—that desperate to get his fix? That’s pathetic. How fucked up do you have to be to—”

—laughter around him, rising and falling, and he saw the conversation from the corner of his eye; everyone was laughing and nodding, they had all been there, they understood, but they could never be like that, thank God, they were safe, they were good, because the only people who got addicted were people who deserved to be addicts—

—and he stared at his phone.

* * *

And, eventually, it all boiled down to a final moment, a distillation of all that had come before: up or down?

He sat at the top of the lobby stairs, thinking.

_I don’t have to go down there. I don’t have to deal with any of this._

The thought was so tempting: to walk away, to go upstairs to his own apartment, bright and spare and uncomplicated… He could just put it all away and go, get back to his life, jump headfirst into his studies, no more distractions, no more confusions—

No more layers. No more secrets. No more discoveries.

No more hinting lies, no more threads to pull—

No more dancing conversations that pulled him out of himself, that made him smile and laugh and think.

No more awful surprises, dropping the floor out from under him—

No more unexpected gifts of things he’d never known he wanted.

No more little comments that made him choke on his drink and splutter, laughing—

No more dark, stabbing words, penetrating to his core and sitting there, barbed and burning.

No more blue eyes, lighting up as soon as he entered the room, making him feel that in a place full of perfectly chosen beautiful things, he was the most beautiful of all—

No more pale eyes, glaring at him, or even worse, sliding over him, refusing to see him at all, making him vanish.

_No more cardamom…_

No more spice on his skin.

He was quiet and still, he was so tired, too tired, and his legs hung down over the stairs, lying limp; his arms propped him up, and his head drooped, and could he push himself up, now?

_I don’t know if I have the strength…_

In the end, it was just easier, having started downstairs, to continue.

* * *

He rapped at the door, half-calling, “Garak, it’s me,” key already out to unlock and open—

And he heard soft, quick footsteps, and the door swung wide, and here was Elim, eyes dull and tired, but smiling, hair brushed, wearing actual clothes instead of rumpled pyjamas, all forced normalcy, and his voice was quiet.

“Hello, Julian.”

_Oh – oh, God—_

It was like a punch to the gut, and he fell forward, wrapping his arms around Elim and pulling him close, burying his face in his shoulder, shaking as his face contorted. Elim’s arms came up and around him, gently – no, _weakly_ , his usual solid strength absent, and that in itself was hard to bear.

“Oh, my dear – my _darling—”_ That cool voice, shaking—

No, _no_ , this wasn’t what he wanted, there was too much between them now for him to let himself slide into yet another game of let’s pretend. He pulled away, ran his hands up over his face and wiped tears from his eyes; he shook his head once, sharply. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Elim was looking at him, hands clenched to loose fists in the air before him. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to let go. _Too bad. This one you did to yourself._

“Um…” His voice trembled a bit; he stopped, breathed deeply, tried again. “You look… much better.”

Elim looked down at himself; one of his hands touched his shirt, almost self-consciously. “I beg to differ. This outfit is not at all up to my usual standards.”

Joking _._ He was joking. This was surreal. The strangeness of it shocked him back into quiet, into self-defence; he detached himself to better observe.

“I came here to check on you.”

“You are most kind, Julian. As always.” Elim’s eyes were so tired. “As you can see, I am managing much better today.”

“It… it looks that way, yes. Um…” He didn’t know what to do now, whether to stay or go. _Can I leave? Am I free?_

_Do I want to be?_

And Elim was looking at him, his manner almost hesitant, offering no clues as to what he wanted Julian to do. God, the last thing he wanted to do was to intrude on him, to interfere with whatever kind of healing he’d begun. He was obviously doing much better without Julian around. _Maybe I made things worse._

His voice slipped from his lips, hesitant. “Maybe I should go. I haven’t eaten yet.”

Elim’s face changed, subtly, something behind his eyes awakening for just a moment, and he reached out as if to touch Julian’s arm. He stopped just short, his hand hanging in air; Julian, mind calm and rippling, absently noticed that his nails needed trimming. _He’s always so perfect. This is so strange._

“Julian, if you would like to stay – _no,”_ and he shook his head, dark hair swinging, “I would _like_ you to stay. I would like to give you dinner. If I may. I have already started to warm some soup; it would not be any trouble.” And the smell of something cooking _was_ drifting through the air, wafting from the kitchen, so this was not a lie, and he could let himself believe, but…

“You can’t – on Wednesday, you could barely walk. You couldn’t eat. How are you…” Oh, no.

 _I hate this. I_ hate _this._

Elim saw the question in his face; his hand dropped back to his side, and he sighed. “No, Julian. I have not taken any more tablets of verkecin or of anything like it.”

“Can I believe that?”  _Stupid question. Of course I can’t._

“I hope that…” Elim frowned, looked away. “I want you to. It has the virtue of being true.”

There was nothing he could say. He couldn’t prove it either way. He’d just have to wait and see. _Like always._

“Please stay.” Elim looked at him again, and his face was calm, relaxed, and there was the sadness underneath, so clear to Julian’s eyes… if it was even real, if it wasn’t some kind of _trick,_ God, and _there_ was the anger he’d wondered about—

It had taken him months to learn to see beneath that surface. _I thought I was so damned perceptive. Did I ever see anything real?_

_I should go. I should just leave._

But here was Elim, tentative and sad, and within Julian, something opened, hesitantly.

He nodded, and Elim smiled.

* * *

Elim sipped his soup from his large ceramic mug, slowly, letting the steam curl up and warm his face. He held the mug close to himself, as if to pull what heat he could from it. Julian watched him, the hesitancy in his movements, his slight wince at the touch of the liquid, as if it was a bit too hot to drink.

His own mug was empty. It had been very good soup, from a batch Elim had made and frozen some time before. _He always plans ahead._

Things seemed slightly easier, now that there was food in his system. He could think more clearly. But that still didn’t make any of it make sense.

_Start with the simple questions. Work up from there._

“Is your soup all right?”

Elim glanced over at him. “It’s fine, thank you.”

“You’re eating very slowly.”

“I’m pacing myself. My stomach is still not quite ready for a real meal, I think, but I _refuse_ to drink another of those vanilla meal replacements.” His mouth pursed in distaste.

Julian tilted his head. “Sorry. Vanilla seemed like the least offensive choice.”

“I didn’t mean—” Elim stopped himself, looked at Julian; Julian shook his head, _don’t worry about it._

He looked into his empty mug. “You were smart to start simple. With your food, I mean.”

Elim blinked, briefly wry. “I find I am less and less interested in complications, of late.”

He nodded, looked away; this was banter, this was meaningless chit-chat, and not why he was here. _Can I just… ask?_

He didn’t have to, thank God. Beside him, Elim sighed, rested his mug on his knees, leaned forward on the couch. “Julian, I have so much to say—”

And this bit he had to get right. “I’d… rather you not, actually.”

A blink. “I’m sorry?”

“I’d rather you not… say anything. Thank you.” He let a small smile cross his lips. “I have rather a lot of questions, you see. And when you start talking, I tend to get derailed. I’d rather that not happen tonight.”

Elim looked down, nodded slightly.

“I… first of all, I need to know what you were.”

“Ah…” Elim smiled his own very small smile, looked into his mug. “But I have been so many things…”

“Just answer me.”

“But that _is_ my answer. I have been a gardener, and a tailor, and a musician, and a student, and a manual labourer, and even a post office clerk. I have been whatever was required of me. That was what I did.” Now he looked at Julian, his gaze steady.

“For the government?”

“One branch of it, yes. Cardassia’s government is not quite as unified as that of the Federation. It’s a bit more like a hydra, you see; many heads. Chop one off and two more grow…” He was waxing fanciful. Julian couldn’t handle that, not tonight. He lowered his brows, and Elim caught the warning and closed his mouth, and looked down again at his hands wrapped tight around his mug.

“But you weren’t really any of those things.”

“I suppose that’s one of way of looking at it.”

“What other way is there?”

“That I was all of those things.” Elim looked up at him, eyes grey with fatigue. “For as long as they’d let me be, I was that person, and I lived that life. I very much liked being a gardener…” His voice trailed off.

 _I don’t understand…_ “When they let you be?”

“Yes. When I… hadn’t yet fulfilled my function, I could gather information. I could simply exist.”

“And what was your function, Elim?”

Now his eyes were dark, his gaze lowered. “I think you have surmised it already, but I will tell you anyway. I was an assassin. Among other things.”

Hearing it from Elim’s own lips didn’t make it seem any more real. _How the hell can I actually know an assassin?_ It sounded like something out of a fantasy novel. And yet, here was this man, stocky and solid and aging, on his couch, sipping soup, and Julian had no doubt that once upon a time was more real than he’d ever imagined.

“You killed people.”

“Yes.”

“You were a murderer.”

“ _No,”_ and Elim’s eyes flashed. “Every job I did was done at the behest of my government. It was all done for Cardassia. A soldier kills for his people too. Is he a murderer?”

“A soldier kills in a war. Not… unexpected. Not out of the blue.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong. What is an assassin but the first soldier to attack, the first-line strike? Sometimes I was simply the first one on enemy soil. Without me to ease the path, many others might have died, soldiers and otherwise. Who is to say I did not save more lives than I took?” He sipped his soup, declamation made, and it all sounded a bit… rehearsed. _I imagine he’s had time to think about it. Years and years…_

“You never refused?”

“Refused?” Elim actually looked a bit surprised. “Why would I do that?”

“Because the person you were to… to kill didn’t deserve to die.”

“Ah.” Elim nodded, tapped a finger against his mug. “Believe me, no one whose life I ended was blameless.”

“Did you know that for sure?”

“I didn’t _have to.”_ Elim’s voice was clipped. “I trusted my employers. They knew more than I did. I did as I was told.”

“For Cardassia.”

“Yes.”

Julian breathed for a moment. He knew Miles had been a soldier, once. He didn’t like talking about it very much. Some nights, after a few beers, he’d mention something small, a name, a place; he’d seem as if he was about to talk, and then he’d shake his head, frown a little. _Never mind, Julian; you don’t need to know about any of that stuff._

Miles was a good man. He knew that.

What did that make Elim?

“You said you were an assassin among other things. What other things?”

Another sip of soup. “I gathered information.”

“You were a spy?”

“That was one aspect.”

Julian frowned. “What was the other aspect?”

“I was an interrogator.” His voice so calm—

“You were a _what?”_

“I gathered information, Julian.” Now there was tension in Elim’s voice, and the sharp snap of consonants. “Sometimes it was easy, sometimes it was not. Either way, it didn’t matter. It was information that was _needed_. I have no doubt that it was well used.”

“But – what if someone didn’t want to—”

“It _didn’t matter_. There were always ways to get an answer.”

_I didn’t want this, God, I didn’t want this…_

“Elim…” He didn’t know what to say. _How can I be anywhere near him, now? How can I even look at him, knowing this?_

“You asked what I was. This is what I was.” Elim’s voice was quiet now, tension faded, back to his softly modulated tenor.

Here he was in wrinkled green cotton scrubs and sock feet, sitting on a couch with… what? A murderer? A torturer?

But he looked at him, sidelong, and here he also was with a quiet, middle-aged man, who liked books, who loved music, who could talk for hours on end about film, who’d taught him to make dumplings, who’d made him his coat, who wrote him love notes on yellow post-its in a language he knew couldn’t be understood.

All of these things were true, and all of them were contained in the man beside him.

_I don’t know if I can hold all of this in my head._

“How…” He trailed off, started again. “Did you… was this your job for a long time?”

Elim’s gaze flicked to him, away again. “It was always my job. I was trained for it as a young man. I became an active agent when I was, mmm, perhaps twenty.”

 _That’s… twenty-four years, more or less._ It was almost as long as Julian had been alive.

At twenty, Julian had just finished his first degree. At twenty, he’d had no idea what he was going to do with his life, except that it wasn’t going to contain any more of what he’d already done.

At twenty, Elim’s life had already been decided for him.

But then, at some point, everything had changed—

“Why did you leave Cardassia?”

A deep sigh, a slight hunch of his shoulders. “I was no longer a useful agent.”

Julian frowned. “Because of…?”

“ _No_ , not because of the verkecin,” and Elim’s voice was almost angry for a moment, “believe me, they were _completely_ fine with that, as long as I kept doing my job. No, it was something else altogether.” He frowned, remembering, and something in his face suggested this was still red and raw. “I terminated a target—”

And Julian thought, _“I killed a man—”_

“—and the next day, I was a wanted man in Cardassia. And I _know_ I did not err; I was not seen, I was not given away, no one had any inkling I was anything more than I seemed to be. I should have been untraceable. And yet, the very next day, everyone knew who I was.”

He sighed. “I was discarded, Julian. I was a tool, used to perform a function. And someone decided that it would be better to discard the tool. To provide an additional layer of cover, I suppose. It doesn’t really matter. As always, they knew best—” His voice choked for a moment, and Julian looked away.

Elim cleared his throat, and Julian heard him sip a little more of his soup. He looked back to see Elim run a hand through his hair, tucking it back behind his ear. “I ran. I didn’t want to die. I ran, and this is where I ran to.”

_He ran from justice?_

Wait, if it had been his job to kill, if the soldier analogy held any kind of water at all… Not fair, to take a man and mold him into a weapon, and then condemn him for going off.

_Julian, are you really buying this?_

_I don’t know, I don’t know…_

“Why… why did you come here?”

A shrug. “This was as good a place as any. The Federation has a reputation for being an excellent place to hide. It is such a melting pot. _Everyone_ is welcome.” Sarcasm laced his words.

“Why haven’t they come looking for you?”

“Believe me, I have wondered this myself, many times. I do not, for one second, believe that they haven’t found me. If they have anyone working for them who is _half_ as good as I was, well…” He gestured, shrugged. “The only answer I can come up with is that they like the situation just as it is.”

“What – you living here? You…?”

“Me in exile.” He looked into his mug, tipped it back to sip the very last of his soup, held it absently in both hands. “I can never go home. My parents… must think I am dead. I will never know. Whatever life I had, I left there.”

That sounded terrible. “You have a life here, Elim.”

His eyes flickered up to meet Julian’s. “Do I? I have an existence, yes. But I am alone here. I miss my home. I gave my life to Cardassia. In a very real way, when I left to save my life, I died. It is a pretty irony.” His voice was quiet, barely audible.

 _What?_ Was this Garak histrionics? Was this some kind of underlying truth…? _Or maybe… life without verkecin looks very bleak._

“Elim… You’re breathing. You’re eating. You make beautiful things. You are alive.”

“Ah, yes,” and now he was smiling, but it wasn’t a very nice smile, “truly, I am reborn. How fortunate I am to be remade as a _tailor_ , making clothes for shrill brides-to-be, hiding chocolates from myself to keep from getting _fat._ The drama of my new life eclipses any terrors my old existence may have held.”

Hearing him dismiss what he was – Julian found himself angry, fists clenching, and he didn’t quite know why. “I would sure as _hell_ rather sit here on this couch with a tailor than with an _assassin.”_

Elim’s eyes slid to him, away. “You are sitting here with both. You might prefer to sit here with neither.”

_I can’t – I can’t take this all in._

He heard his own voice, speaking unbidden; it seemed to echo. “Did… did you like it, Elim?”

Elim’s face didn’t change, but he had a sense of a freezing, a moment of shame.

“Sometimes.”

“If you could go back tomorrow… if you could start again, would you?”

“Ah, Julian… those are two separate questions.”

“Fine. Answer them both.”

“If I could go back tomorrow… as I am? Perhaps. But if I could start again…” Now he looked at Julian, and his eyes were bleak. “I think that depends on you, my dear…”

Julian felt his mouth open, turned his face away – _not fair, too soon—_

“Julian, please understand, whatever I have here, I have because of you – any joy in my life, any pleasure that remains to me—” Elim was talking too quickly, words tumbling over each other in his need to be heard. “I never expected anything like you, you know – you took me completely by surprise – and you were in my heart before I knew it—”

He didn’t want to hear this. He almost wanted to cover his ears.

“And I didn’t _want_ that, I didn’t want a vulnerability, I needed my defenses more than ever because I was so alone – but here you were, and every time I tried to block you out, I found myself letting you in another way. I was at war with myself, and no matter which side won, I knew I would lose. I played games with myself – I made you things to wrap around your body and I told myself they were innocent gifts – I wrote you notes you couldn’t read and told myself that what they said didn’t matter – Julian, I found myself in your _bed_ and I told myself I could still walk away!”

And suddenly he had stopped talking, and Julian looked back at him, almost squinting through half-closed eyes.

Elim had fisted his hands, tightly; Julian saw spots of almost pure white on each knuckle where pale skin stretched. “When this began, when I ran out of verkecin, I was terrified – I was afraid of what life would be like without it…”

He turned, and looked at Julian, and his eyes were alive again for the first time since this whole horrible thing had started; they were alive, and they ached. “I was afraid of what _I_ would be like without it, Julian. Could I still smile? Could I laugh, and tell you pretty things? I didn’t know who I would be…”

A shake of his head. “And then I was so angry, because everything hurt and I wanted to die and I couldn’t because of _you_ , because it would hurt you—”

God, this was _awful_ —

“And so I hated you, and I told you so, and of all the regrettable things I have done in my life, that would be the one thing I would undo if I could.” He was staring at Julian, as if he could will him to understand.

 _Oh, God, and what does that mean? That hurting me is worse than_ murder? _What does that tell me about_ him?

Julian found himself shaking his head, his hands up in front of him, _no, no, no…_

“Elim, I can’t, _I can’t.”_

He saw Elim bite back words, swallow them down, force himself to be silent. His own hands drifted downwards, found and wrapped themselves around his empty mug.

They sat there in the warm basement apartment, between Elim’s fabric-covered walls, among his lovely, perfectly-chosen things. Julian’s mind fluttered frantically, unable to settle on any one thought for longer than a moment. Elim just breathed, looking down at his knees, his toes working into the rug.

Finally, Julian picked a question at random.

“What makes tonight different than Wednesday? Why… why tell me this now?” _Why tell me any of this at all?_

Elim looked up at that, and his face worked for a moment, expression changing subtly. Julian saw surprise there, shading into affection and into pain. “I owe it to you.”

“You _owe_ it to me?”

“For what you’ve done for me.”

“What, this week?”

“Julian, for _everything_ you’ve done for me.” And his eyes were intense, imploring. “For you to know me… No one knows me the way you do now. I am yours, completely.”

In every sense of the word, it was true. _I could tell all of his secrets. I could tell everyone._

He had the power to destroy Elim Garak, if he wanted to.

But perhaps Elim Garak knew that Julian Bashir could never want to destroy anyone. _I just want to help… God, but to help him?_

He couldn’t even begin to imagine how. _And it’s not my job, is it? It’s his._

He exhaled, long and slow, _two, three, four…_

“Tell me what you want me to say.”

A quick intake of breath, a flicker of pale eyelids over tired eyes. “I want you to forgive me.”

_What?_

“Please, Julian,” and his voice was calm and rational, and it scraped at Julian’s skin like his dull razor. “You know me. I am yours. And having your forgiveness is the closest thing to absolution I will ever get. I don’t deserve it. But I need to know that someone…” That level voice trailed off; he looked away, and his hand rested on the couch next to Julian’s leg, squeezing the cushion, all the tension absent from his voice writhing there.

 _Liar, liar, liar._ Was it true? Was any of it true?

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be in the same room with Elim anymore.

_So why am I not walking away?_

There were layers and layers of answers to that question, weren’t there… God, it was too complicated, and his eyes closed. _All I need is one reason. One simple reason._

And here was an answer. Perhaps an excuse. _Because he hurts. And I want to mend hurt. I’m good at it._

_All right, then: let’s pretend, Julian. You’re the doctor. He’s the patient. And that’s all you need to know._

It was good enough for now; it wouldn’t last, but for this moment, it allowed him to reach over and cover Elim’s hand with his own.

“I can’t forgive you. Not for all of it.”

A quick flash of blue eyes—

“I’m not any of the people you hurt. I can’t take what you did away from you, I can’t control any of that. You have to deal with that yourself.”

Elim’s hand was shaking.

“But as for what you did to _me,_ Elim:  I forgive you.” _Say it now, make it true later._

And Elim looked up, his eyes agonized. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Nobody ever gets what they deserve…” _Nobody is blameless. You said it yourself._ “But if you want to start again, you have to start somewhere. It might as well be here.”

There were tears in Elim’s eyes, and it was unbearable; God, this week he’d seen the older man cry several times, and this was the first time it had twisted at him quite this way. _Because this time, it’s me doing it._

It was important, though. Sometimes you had to hurt to heal.

“I…” Now his voice was thick; he stopped himself, found his distance, started again. “I can’t ask you not to be what you were. You can’t control that. But you can control who you are _now_. I don’t know how much of the Elim I thought I knew is real. God, I can’t even—” He stopped himself again, and now there were tears in his own eyes despite his efforts; he dashed them away, cool against his skin. “I fell in love with who I thought you were, Elim. It’s up to you to be that person, now. That’s not something I can control either.”

Elim was staring at him. He squeezed his hand, couldn’t muster a smile. “That’s all I can give you. I hope it’s enough.”

“Julian…” Elim’s voice was almost a whisper. “Do you love me?”

He couldn’t look at him. “I did a week ago.”

“And now?”

“And now…” He looked up at him, too tired to wear any kind of expression at all. “We are starting over, I think.” _If I can even give you that… God, I ache._

“Ah…” And Elim managed to smile at him. “How very non-linear of us.”

Julian tried to smile back. He couldn’t, quite.

Elim’s hand moved in his own, and now they gripped each other’s hands in the grip for family and close friends, just as Elim had taught him, and their fingers did not interlace. _Family. Friends. Not lovers._

“Julian, why didn’t you tell me you had translated my notes?” A subject change; Julian was thankful for it.

“I wanted to see how many I could do on my own.”

“Ah? And how have you managed?”

“I’m… not really sure.” He smiled ruefully, and suddenly this almost felt normal. _Go with it._ “Some of them made sense. Some of them… not quite.”

“Well, they are not all simple statements. Tell me what you’ve found so far.”

“Well, there was _thank you.”_

Elim nodded. “I remember. That was the Sunday when you helped me cook.”

“One of them is just a question. _Have you not understood my lessons well enough already?_ I wasn’t quite sure what that meant…” Translating that one had felt a bit like an admonishment.

“Ah,” and Elim actually managed a small chuckle. “That is a quote from a rather famous Cardassian novel. A romance, actually. I will lend it to you.”

“Right, that… sounds good, thank you.” What else, um… “One of them says _you are the brightest thing in my life.”_

“Oh.” Elim looked almost embarrassed for a moment. “I had forgotten that I’d given you that one.”

“I rather liked that, actually…” He found himself smiling, and Elim smiled back.

“And then…” The last note, _I love you,_ it had said _I love you,_ and he’d half-grinned, eyes wide in the horrible fluorescent library light, and pressed the little note to his chest, and _laughed—_

 _Oh, God,_ and his face was crumpling, and he made a choked, throaty sound. Elim’s face opened in sudden dismay, and he reached out as if to hold him close; Julian pushed him away with one hand, covered his face with another, _no, I don’t want to do this!_

But he couldn’t help it, it was too much, “Oh, _God_ , Elim… Was it true? Was any of it true?” His voice was hoarse with repressed tears.

Elim’s face was naked, his voice harsh, eyes searching, “Julian, it was all true…”

“Right,” _God, I am so stupid,_ and he half-laughed through an escaping sob, “even the lies?”

“Oh, my darling, _especially_ the lies…” God, Elim was trying to joke, trying to make it okay, even with his usual tight control nonexistent, his cool multi-layered smile unimaginable on the twisting face he now wore – _who is this? I don’t know him…_

_I never did._

Elim’s eyes were red, brimming with tears, and part of him very much wanted to pull him close, to weep into his shoulder and let him do the same, to forgive and forget…

But it wasn’t his job to forgive. And he couldn’t afford to forget.

 _How do I feel?_ He couldn’t tell. Pushing down tears, angry at himself, angry at Elim, and the whole thing sadly funny in some awful way, and it was too much. _I… don’t feel anything._

There was nothing left inside him, nothing left between them; where there’d been a bright connection, a flowing give-and-take, he now found only the stuttering spark of a severed wire.

  
[](http://tinypic.com?ref=11tmly0)   


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Disconnect](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385279) by [wcdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wcdarling/pseuds/wcdarling)




End file.
